


Take Me Home

by nightingaelic



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 76
Genre: Angry Sex, Anxiety, Appalachia, Daddy Issues, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Hesitancy, Light Dom/sub, Mommy Issues, Multi, Older Woman/Younger Woman, Reminiscing, Scissoring, Smut, Sparring, Sweet, West Virginia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:41:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23798635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightingaelic/pseuds/nightingaelic
Summary: Former Vault 76 resident Clementine Savoy has a wide range of relationships with the people she's met in the Appalachia wasteland.
Relationships: Female Vault Dweller (Fallout 76)/Beckett, Female Vault Dweller (Fallout 76)/Duchess, Female Vault Dweller (Fallout 76)/Ward, Female Vault Dweller (Fallout 76)/Weasel
Comments: 9
Kudos: 42





	1. Duchess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess I'll start the Wastelanders expansion party, eh? More pairings to follow, with updated tags to match. Happy blushing :)

Back when she was a younger woman, Duchess had complained about West Virginia’s firm closing time for taverns. In her experience, 2 a.m. was usually when things had just started to get good. People who might’ve said “no” earlier in the evening began to change their tune, and that was always good business for her. 

Now that she was actually running a bar, though, she was the one stifling yawns as the wee morning hours ticked on. Sure, she usually had plenty of customers to keep pouring drinks for, as the Flatwoods folk often decided to meander up the road for something stronger than the swill they served at their own tavern, but now the time she spent up late was more mechanical than magical. Glass, liquor, caps. Repeat. 

Even then, Duchess didn’t think she minded the routine. Routine was a blessing these days. The main problem with routine was the space it opened up for wandering thoughts, and the last thing she wanted was time to think about the past. 

Of course, those thoughts could be avoided if she threw herself into being the kind of bartender that brought people back to the Wayward. A free shot of moonshine here, a wink there, some open-ended questions and you could lose yourself in the stories the wastelanders had to share. It was also a great source of rumors, travel tips and news from across Appalachia, and if you could pass those on to the next thirsty traveler instead of thinking about the man you’d buried beside the river a few months ago, all the better. 

Sometimes, though, the news itself was what emptied her schedule. Duchess had thought the crowd looked thinner when she took over from Mort around lunchtime, and she’d been unsurprised to hear that someone had spotted a scorchbeast winging its way around Summersville the day before. Summersville wasn’t exactly close, but it wasn’t that far either, and even if it was the first flying hellion that had been spotted this side of the Savage Divide in months, nobody was keen to catch its attention and become an appetizer. 

So when she found herself alone at the bar with nearly an hour and a half until close, Duchess sighed heavily. Not even her business partners were around to keep her company. Jide was probably snoozing in his desk chair at the motel, Mort had turned in ages ago in order to open for her the next morning, and Sol and Polly had decided they were going on a run into Morgantown a few days back and weren’t expected until the weekend. The only one around that was probably still awake was Bessie, and she wasn’t any more conversational than the brahmin. 

The jingle of the bell on the door saved her, and she perked up as the screen swung open to reveal a familiar face. A face she didn’t think she’d be seeing again. 

Duchess narrowed her eyes and smirked. “Didn’t bring any trouble with ya this time, I hope?” 

The woman at the door smiled wearily and stepped into the light. She looked much the same as she had the first time she walked into the Wayward: A tanned, freckled countenance atop a faded black overcoat, criss-crossed by leather belts adorned in travel pouches and what looked like railway spikes. She still had that oversized rifle slung next to her backpack, that torn, black cowboy hat atop her head, but her golden hair was longer around her cheeks and her hazel eyes more tired behind her dusty eyeglass frames. 

Thanks to its proximity to Flatwoods, former residents of Vault 76 were a common sight around the Wayward. The way Duchess heard tell, most of the vault had simply picked up their cushy lives and transplanted them to the tiny town that had once housed the Responders. The vault dwellers were content to bury the rotting corpses, reprogram the Mr. Farmhands and start planting their own crops. There had been some splintering from the main group for sure ― a pretty sizeable portion had broken off to attempt to restart the Responders, to mixed success, and quite a few of the younger, rowdier crowd had run off to join raider gangs or form their own ― but most still lived a quiet life down the hill from the vault they’d spent two-and-a-half decades in, punctuated only by the occasional rogue protectron or horde of feral ghouls. 

The woman at the door was part of a smaller group of Vault 76 graduates, as far as Duchess could tell. When the vault door rolled open on that Reclamation Day, it was said, a few residents took advantage of the chaos to slip away into the trees unnoticed and head for the farthest corners of the map. The most surprising disappearance had been the vault’s overseer, who had been the first to vanish and had left the most confusion in her wake. After a bit of shouting and voting, the main group designated its own leaders and began the task of rebuilding America, but some of the residents had been curious enough to try to follow their missing superior. Most were never seen or heard from again, and it was assumed the dangers of the wasteland had claimed them. 

That is, until about six months after Reclamation Day, when a bright light flashed in the southeast. Days after it occurred, traders that had been traversing the mountains claimed they had seen another, far-off mushroom cloud billow up to grace the sky, out over the cranberry bogs that now contained nothing but furious winged monsters that breathed poison. They swore that one of these emerged upon the nuke’s detonation, that it screamed its anger into the radiation blast and took flight. That somehow, it _fell._

Only after this unbelievable story was told did the missing vault dwellers begin to emerge from the forests of Appalachia. They were scarred, their once-pale faces now burned by the sun and the rads and the claws of the wasteland’s creatures. They were quiet, like they’d seen and heard things out east that they couldn’t put into words, carried secrets that no person should be forced to carry. But they were alive ― and so was West Virginia, again. 

This vault dweller was one of that number, Duchess thought. Little about her was known other than the name she went by, Savoy, and that she ran a little brewing and distilling operation somewhere up in the Savage Divide. She did odd jobs here and there, and she popped up in strange places with a variety of characters. Duchess had even hired her to scare off some raiders once, and to pull Polly and Sol out of a tight spot another time, and she’d done it with so little fuss and fanfare that Duchess had started asking around about the mysterious woman’s past. It was useless, of course. Vault residents were tight-lipped about each others’ backgrounds when talking to those they perceived to be outsiders, and Savoy herself wasn’t the type to offer details. And she certainly wasn’t the type to just wander in on her lonesome unless she needed something. 

“Busy night,” the vault dweller remarked, taking a seat across the bar. 

Duchess chuckled and pulled up a bottle of her in-house brew. She uncorked it and poured out a glass for her visitor. “Didn’t ya hear, darlin’? There’s a bat flappin’ around the forest somewhere.” 

The vault dweller drank deeply and sighed. “Must’ve missed it. I came down from the north. Nothing in the sky but stars.” 

“Well ain’t you a lucky one.” Duchess reached over and turned down the radio. “So what brings ya back to my neck of the woods? Heard tell from a few folks that you’re stickin’ to the mountains these days.” 

Her guest ran her finger around the rim of her glass and tilted it from side to side before answering. “Needed to breathe for a bit.” 

“So… this _isn’t_ a business trip.” Duchess put a hand on her hip. “Because I’m fresh out of tick blood tequila and dangerously low on vodka, for a woman in my line of work.” 

“I’m not personally running jobs out this way anymore,” Savoy said apologetically. “Beckett took Nettles and kept going north when I turned south. He should be down around here within a week, if he doesn’t wind up in a ditch somewhere.” 

Duchess feigned exasperation. “You’re tellin’ me that ya came all this way to visit a lady and ya didn’t even bring a bottle of the good stuff for her? That’s a cryin’ shame, cookie.” 

In response, Savoy pulled a flask from inside one of her pouches and set it on the counter. “Give that a try.” 

A sniff of the contents yielded a spiced, fruity odor that burned once inside Duchess’s nostrils. She took a swig, and whooped softly as it lit a fire in her throat and stomach. “Now _that’s_ got some kick to it,” she admitted. 

The vault dweller smiled and took a drink from the flask as well. “Firecracker whiskey. Something I’ve been cooking up in my spare time. Ready for bottling and sale pretty soon, I figure.” 

“I’ll say.” Duchess shook her head and grinned. “You’re full of surprises, Savoy.” 

Savoy took her hat off and set it on the bar. “Well, we live in a surprising world, Duchess. Speaking of which, any more of those Free Radicals coming around to bother you? They ate that lie that I fed them pretty thoroughly, but I figured I’d check in.” 

Duchess waved her hand. “Don’t you worry about them no more, I hear they’re chasin’ some other vault up north to try to crack open. Sounds like they lost interest altogether, which I suppose we owe you some thanks for.” 

“Don’t mention it.” Savoy finished her drink and set the glass down carefully. “There’s something else I came back to do. About that night, with Crane. I never… I’m sorry.” 

“Bit late for apologies, girl,” Duchess answered roughly. “What’s done is done. It wasn’t ever gonna end another way, once he’d… he’d…” 

She trailed off, and some creaky fiddling from the radio filled the silence between them. When Duchess reached over to refill the girl’s empty glass, Savoy caught her hand. “Tell me about him.” 

Duchess pulled away. “There’s nothin’ to tell, really. Wasn’t ever a serious thing, I thought, until he caught the plague after trying to get into Gauley Mine and faded away in front of me. I didn’t know it was breaking my heart until it was already in pieces on the floor.” 

Savoy inclined her head. “That may be so, but it wasn’t my place to stomp on the pieces. You hadn’t come to terms with it yet.” 

“And I wouldn’t have, if ya hadn’t put a six-inch steel spike in his head,” Duchess argued, her voice rising. “Now drop it. It’s over, and I’ll be fine.” 

She uncorked the bottle again and poured out another for Savoy, then one for herself. “So what’s really on your mind, vault dweller?” 

Savoy grinned. “I haven’t lived in a vault for almost two years now, Duchess.” 

“Still got that bright blue jumpsuit somewhere in your possession?” 

“Of course.” 

“And your Pip-Boy?”

Savoy held up the computer strapped to her left arm, and Duchess leveled a finger at her. “Then you’re still a vault dweller. Now, tell me what’s eatin’ at ya, because I know it ain’t _my_ mental health you came all the way down into the valley for.” 

Savoy sighed and picked up her glass again. “No, I guess not. It’s the folks at the Crater and Foundation butting heads again.” 

Duchess frowned. “Over what?” 

“What else?” Savoy shrugged. “Resources, space, people. But they’d rather just obsess about an easy fix than actually try to get along, so it’s all about the treasure. They’re both ready to go for it, and it’s absolutely going to get messy.” 

“That goddamned treasure.” Duchess shook her head and leaned on the counter. “Everyone I know has some kind of theory about what’s actually buried in those hills. Personally, I think it’s probably another dusty bunker full of poor souls that Vault-Tec tried to run some insane experiment on before they all expired. Nothin’ to be had but bones and empty promises.” 

Savoy looked down at her drink and smiled. “Maybe. I don’t think that many people are actually concerned about what’s in it, it’s more about what it means to the people outside. It could be anything, but as long as no one knows for sure, it’s some kind of hope for a better tomorrow. Once someone cracks open that door, it won’t be enough anymore.” 

Duchess held her drink up in the air between them. “To hard truths.” 

Savoy tapped it with her own glass and they both drank. The radio played on, switching to Eddie Cochran. 

“Why’re you so concerned with who gets to the treasure first?” Duchess asked, pulling out a rag to wipe down the bar. “Seems like a distillery would make money no matter who’s left to buy the booze.” 

“Believe it or not, I’d rather not see another war in my lifetime,” Savoy answered. “Wouldn’t be quite so flashy as the last one we had, but it’d be a war all the same. I’ve seen enough human death to last a thousand lifetimes.” 

Duchess scoffed. “People were killin’ each other long before the Great War, and they’ll be killin’ each other long after you and I are dead ‘n’ gone. And don’t tell me Crane was the only person you pinned to the wall with a railway spike since you walked outta 76, because I know for a _fact_ that ain’t the truth.” 

Something sparkled in the vault dweller’s eyes for an instant. “What, you think that just because I have blood on my hands means that I can’t hope for a brighter future? Brave words, coming from the Duchess of Welch.” 

If Duchess had been holding a glass, she’d have dropped it. She glared at the woman across the counter from her. “Don’t you utter that name in my establishment, darlin’. That woman is dead and gone.” 

Savoy put her hands up. “Fine. Just figured I’d call out hypocrisy when it raises its head.” 

“How’d you know?” Duchess asked, lowering her voice. 

“I’ve spent more than my fair share of time in the Ash Heap,” Savoy replied, her own voice low to match. “And I read. Once I found that holotape lying around the Purveyor’s new digs, it didn’t take much to connect the dots.” 

Duchess tossed her rag down. “And whatcha want?” 

Savoy frowned. “Nothing. I don’t care what you used to get up to, I’m here to talk to you now. As a friend.” 

“Oh, we’re friends?” Duchess raised an eyebrow and went back to wiping the counter. “News to _me.”_

“Shame.” The vault dweller stared at the bottom of her glass, then downed what alcohol was left in it. “I could use one right now.” 

She sounded so tired in that moment, so resigned with her lot in life that Duchess couldn’t help but stop and look at her. She was young, but not young enough to suggest she’d been born inside Vault 76. If she had to, Duchess would have guessed that she’d been no older than 10 when she’d been locked inside the earth to wait for the war’s effects to wear off. She had high cheekbones and a square jaw, and there were earnest laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. Before the war this woman would have wanted for nothing, would’ve married a man who provided and popped out three smiling children to dote upon. She would never have gained the faded scars that decorated her face, never acquired that sorrowful exhaustion in her eyes. Never grown into something so beautiful, and yet so sad. 

Duchess sighed and set the sticky piece of cloth aside. “Lay it on me, cookie. There’s still a while ‘til last call.” 

So she did. Savoy talked quietly, almost a whisper at times, while Duchess listened and refilled her glass until she was done. She put to words the story that others only speculated about, filled in the gaps in history and held her audience captive with descriptions of what had been and what would be. It sounded fantastical at times, like the tall tales some wanderers traded on the Wayward’s porch on lazy afternoons, but Duchess didn’t comment until the vault dweller was finished. 

“That’s a mighty fine yarn ya got there,” she said, with five minutes to go until bar close. “How long you been waitin’ to unravel that?” 

Savoy laughed. “Too long.” 

Duchess took the empty bottle they’d shared from the counter and tossed it in the bin behind her. “So now you’ve got some decisions to make. Hell, I don’t envy you. But why’d you decide to run that whole thing by me? We barely know each other.” 

“That was the point,” Savoy replied, scratching her head. “Everyone I’d normally talk to about this… well, they’re not exactly neutral parties. Like I said, I needed to breathe and I needed to find someone with a different perspective.” 

“Oh darlin’.” Duchess put a hand to her chest. “I hope ya aren’t plannin’ to ask me for my opinion on what you should do, now.” 

“No, I wouldn’t…” Savoy closed her eyes and grimaced. “Just saying it out loud without getting interrupted with suggestions helps.” 

“Well, good.” Duchess wiped her hands and looked at the clock on the wall. “Last call, if you need something for the road.” 

Savoy declined. “I’ve had my fill, and I don’t think I’m going anywhere tonight. I might be able to shoot, but I’m not about to try taking down a scorchbeast when it’s pitch-black outside and there’s a million trees in my way. Think Jide’s still got room?” 

Duchess waved her off. “Don’t bother wakin’ him up. You made tonight a hair more interestin’ than I thought it was gonna be. I’ve a spare couch upstairs you can sleep on. No charge.” 

“You sure?” 

She nodded firmly. “Absolutely. Get on up there, I’ll see to it we’re locked up.” 

Savoy hopped off her stool and made her way up the stairs to the second level. Duchess busied herself putting bottles away, polishing glasses and making sure the refrigerator hadn’t kicked the bucket again. Finally, she locked the front door and checked that all the windows were closed tightly before turning off the radio and the main lights and using the glow of the Christmas bulbs to navigate her way upstairs. 

She shut the door to the apartment behind her and turned to find the vault dweller in a state of undress, pulling a tank top down over her head. Her coat, pants and shirt were in a pile on the floor next to her pack, and her legs were long and pale in the fluorescent light of the office. At the sound of the latch closing, she spun around, pulling the thin shirt down as far over her underwear as it would go. 

“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I know the bathroom is downstairs, I just figured I’d change real fast. Let me grab my pants, can you-” 

Savoy stopped abruptly when she saw the look spreading across Duchess’s face. Cautiously, she let go of the hem of the shirt and straightened up, putting her arms at her sides. 

“You didn’t actually want me to sleep on the couch, did you?” she asked, more of a statement than a question. 

“No, honey,” Duchess admitted. “But it’s still there, if you’re so inclined.” 

Savoy studied her for a beat, before slowly reaching across her torso to grab the bottom of the tank top again. Her fingers danced along its hemline and her arms twisted sensually, up and over her head until it, too, was on the floor. 

In response, Duchess locked the door of the suite and leaned back against the frame. “Well go on, then.” 

Savoy turned her back to her, then craned her neck around with a playful pout. “Help me out,” she murmured, hugging her torso and running her hands up and down her own waist. 

Duchess rolled her eyes and crossed the room, laying a hand on Savoy’s back just above where her bra hooked together. Her fingers were cold against the other woman’s skin, and Savoy shivered slightly from the touch. 

“Ask me nicely,” Duchess whispered in her ear. 

_“Please.”_

The bra came undone with a pop, and Duchess slid her hands beneath it, creeping around Savoy’s sides until she reached the outside swell of her breasts. She cupped them and thumbed the nipple on the right experimentally. It hardened quickly, and Savoy gasped. 

“Too easy,” Duchess remarked, running her teeth along the woman’s neck. She gave her left breast similar attention, kneading and rolling until the bra came off entirely and Savoy’s perky little tits were bare under the office light. 

Savoy turned in her arms and caught her mouth in a kiss, slow and sweet at first, then hungry and deep. Duchess pulled her in, pressed her cold hand into the curve of her back and pulled her warm, nearly-naked body into her own, which still had far too many layers on for her liking. Savoy helped with this, tugging ferociously at her until her studded jacket had come off, her belt was unbuckled and her boots had been kicked to different corners of the room. Duchess guided her backwards until she finally fell into the bed behind the desk, a mess of golden hair and little gasps. 

Before pulling her own t-shirt off, Duchess paused. “Now I don’t want whatever this is making its way into the waking world, ya hear me? A lady’s got to maintain her air of mystery.” 

Savoy pushed herself up off the bed and grinned. “Whatever you say, ma’am.” 

“You’re goddamn right.” The shirt fell to the floor and Duchess shucked her jeans off to keep it company. “Not a word.” 

She climbed into bed and put her mouth to Savoy’s breast, and she felt fingers on her back unhooking her own bra. Before those fingers could loop around to her chest, Duchess caught them and pinned them into the mattress. Savoy groaned beneath her and put up a little bit of a struggle, but Duchess held them firm and pulled back from the nipple she’d been sucking on. “If you’re gonna complain, I can find other uses for that mouth of yours.” 

The sparkle was back in Savoy’s eyes. “That how it’s gonna be?” 

“That’s how it’s gonna be.” 

Savoy arched her back and pressed her hips into Duchess’s. “Promise?” 

Instead of answering, Duchess rolled to the side and flipped the other woman over. Savoy squeaked in surprise and tried to get up, but as soon as she’d made it onto all fours Duchess pressed one hand into her spine and hooked the other around the back of her thigh, pressing her fingers to its inside. “Stay,” she ordered. 

Savoy trembled but she didn’t move, even as Duchess slid her panties down to her knees and slid a hand along the curve of her ass. She shook as Duchess ran her fingers over her body, sliding and cupping around the newly-exposed skin and snaking back up her stomach to pull at her breasts, hanging down so invitingly along with her tousled blonde hair. 

When Duchess was done exploring the vault dweller’s body, she slid one hand up into that golden hair and gripped it firmly. She used the other to nudge Savoy’s knees slightly more apart, before running a finger down her stomach and into the tangle of hair between her legs. 

The little sounds Savoy made as Duchess’s finger circled her clit were soft and insistent, and when she pulled her head back she could see that her eyes were closed in pleasure. She grew steadily more wet as Duchess traced her entrance carefully, slowly, drawing back when her breaths became too heavy and her knees weak. When she finally slid a finger in, Savoy moaned with longing and bucked her hips back ever so slightly. 

She’d been expecting it: Most women she’d been with couldn’t help themselves after all that anticipation. Immediately, Duchess stopped her movements. “What did I tell you to do, honey?” 

Savoy opened her eyes. “To stay.” 

“That’s right. You gonna do it, or am I gonna have to find some way to make ya?” 

Savoy’s slightly-open mouth curled up into a mischievous grin. “I’d like to see you try.” 

Duchess pressed her face down into her own pillow and gave her a measured smack on the ass. Savoy cried out, but her wriggles were playful and she curved her back up into Duchess’s hand as she spanked her, again and again until there were some beautiful rosy marks on her backside. When Duchess flipped her over, she was giggling. 

“Ya just couldn’t behave yourself,” Duchess said with a dramatic sigh as she worked her own underwear off and threw a leg over Savoy’s torso. “If you’re gonna let your tongue get the better of you, we’re gonna give it a job to do. Think you’re up to the task?” 

Savoy slid herself down the bed until her face was directly between Duchess’s legs. “Yes, ma’am.” 

The sight of the vault dweller on her knees in her bed had already had a definite effect on Duchess’s body, and when Savoy worked her tongue into her most sensitive parts, whatever cold was left in her limbs began to disappear. She stabilized herself with one hand on the cast-iron headboard while the other played with her own nipples, adding new points of pleasure to the warm sensations that crept over her skin. Her own climax snuck up on her, probably because it had been so long since she’d last had someone to help her find it, and she threw her ginger hair back over her shoulder as she rode Savoy’s mouth until the waves of it dissipated. When she climbed off again, she was greeted with a look of pleased triumph from her companion. 

“Not bad,” Duchess admitted. “You ready to try again?” 

Savoy nodded and rolled over onto her stomach, lifting herself up onto her hands and knees. She shook her ass slightly, playfully, and if Duchess had been a younger woman that might’ve been cause for her to tie her to the bed frame and teach her some more lessons. Instead, she resumed running her hands along the girl’s curves, tweaking her nipples and parting her knees until they were spread wide and wanting. Slowly, she worked back up until she pressed a finger inside, and smiled when Savoy didn’t move a muscle. 

One finger in that wet warmth, sliding in and out with the occasional flick over her clit, then two, gently working in tandem as the woman beneath her became unable to hold back her moans. She let go of the vault dweller’s hair and hooked a finger into her mouth, curled it against her lower jaw. She felt Savoy’s tongue flick her tenderly, and she increased her speed. In and out, in and out, until her partner was shuddering all over but holding her frame as still as she could. She felt the rush as it wracked Savoy, as she cried out in gratification and muttered something into the pillow that Duchess couldn’t make out. 

Savoy flopped over to the side and Duchess fell down next to her, pulling the blanket that had shimmied its way down to the foot of the bed up and over their naked bodies. Savoy’s breaths slowed eventually, and she reached up to brush a lock of Duchess’s red hair out of her face. 

“Not a word,” Duchess reminded her. 

Savoy looked over at her and grinned. “I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone. You’d just put them to shame.” 

“Smart-ass.” 

Sleep came easily to the vault dweller, but Duchess lay awake for a while, listening to the breathing of the woman next to her. Savoy didn’t notice when Duchess slid out from under her arm and went back out to the office, where she pulled a spare blanket from the storage room and settled down on the couch for the night. 

When she awoke the next morning, the vault dweller was already gone. There was a note lying out on the desk that hadn’t been there the night before, and Duchess wrapped the blanket around herself before crossing the room to pick it up. 

_Thanks for listening,_ it said, _and for everything else. Your first case of firecracker whiskey is on me._

Duchess pulled some clothes on before fishing a lighter out of the desk and setting the piece of paper on fire. She watched it crinkle away into ash, and when it was gone she smiled to herself and headed downstairs.


	2. Ward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Contains major spoilers for the Wastelanders expansion in Fallout 76, particularly the settlers faction.

When the settlers had first set foot in Spruce Knob and began erecting log walls to keep out the Appalachian wildlife and riff raff, Ward and Paige had taken the reins of the projects they’d felt comfortable with and steered the growing town in the direction it needed to go. There had never been a conversation about who was in charge, no vote or declaration about leadership roles. Paige naturally gravitated toward management of the people, the scared families and individuals who had banded together to build a better life, and the necessary care it took to keep them safe, healthy and united. Ward, on the other hand, stuck to the gritty details, the acquisition of supplies, assembly of equipment, the planting of crops. The most there had ever been was a meaningful look, a shared glance between the two men that always ended in one stepping back and the other stepping up. 

As the settlement grew, so did its crowd of admirers and associates. The Blue Ridge Caravan Company was on board with supplies shipments from an early point on, and with them came a steady stream of trade partners and hopefuls looking for a new home. The town swelled, and Ward finally found himself with enough bodies to space out guard shifts, enough hands to hammer together boards and herd livestock. It was because of this that he didn’t deal with the vault dwellers when they finally showed their faces in town. The first wanderer to walk through the gate in a tell-tale blue suit covered with leather armor drew plenty of attention, but Ward just shook his head and went back to plucking the chicken he’d just butchered. 

More vault dwellers came through not long after. They were a varied bunch, each one with their own choice in attire, weapon and words about what West Virginia had become since the bombs fell, but all with that Pip-Boy strapped to their wrists. Around the campfires at night, Ward picked up that most of them were still pretty soft when it came to life outside a government-approved bunker, and they had their own little town somewhere down in the forest called Flatwoods. Some of the former Vault 76 residents had struck off on their own and were scattered across the wilderness, and they were a little more reserved than their Flatwoods counterparts, a little more tight-lipped about their whereabouts and pasts. That was fine with Ward. Every time one of the Flatwoods vault dwellers mourned some relative or friend who’d thrown their lot in with a raider group, he could still feel eyes on the back of his head. On those nights, he stuck to his trailer. 

One of the early Vault 76 graduates to come calling was a woman who called herself Savoy, and who demanded that Paige inoculate all of the Foundation settlers against something she called “the Scorched plague.” It sounded like something out of a low budget movie: Giant bats that breathed poison and slowly molded you into a mindless slave and turned your limbs into ash. Had she come to share that story the day they’d arrived in Appalachia they would have laughed her out of town, but by now Paige and Ward had already seen a couple of the ferals that were different from the others. Burned skin, green lesions, and a still-working knowledge of weapons. They’d already put a few down, outside the walls. And when Savoy came back to Foundation with the settlement’s doctor, Aubrie, covered in his assistants’ blood and looking like he’d just taken a stroll through hell, Paige was more than ready to agree to whatever precautions the vault dweller was insisting upon. 

Drinking the strange bottles of Nuka-Cola that Savoy brought back was one thing, but when Paige began to plot with her about breaking into some vault up north that supposedly held all the gold the U.S. government had hoarded away, Ward started to worry. The vault dweller moved rapidly, and with Paige and Aubrie backing her they gathered starstruck followers at a fearsome pace. First a former mining tycoon and her pet robot drill, then little Jen and her miraculously not-dead, Chinese spy of a mother, and finally Captain Fields and his handful of jarheads. Pretty soon, the settlement was crowded with leaders, and none of them were listening to what Ward had to say about Savoy. 

“She’s playing the field,” he warned Paige one day in the breakfast line. “She sold me a handful of photos of the Crater the other day, right in the heart of their operations. There’s no way she snuck in there, so she must have walked in through the front door. She has to be as welcome among those raiders as she is here.” 

Paige chuckled and handed him a bowl of razorgrain porridge. “That doesn’t surprise me, Ward. She and her kind are doing their best to survive, same as us. If she’s on good terms with Meg and her crew, it’s probably for her own benefit more than an attempt to undermine Foundation. Plus, she’s a moonshiner, and who drinks more booze than raiders?” 

When he tried to argue that she was just as likely to be taking photos of Foundation and selling them to Meg, Paige wouldn’t hear it. Ward gave up after that, except to keep an eye on Savoy when she was in town and glare whenever they made eye contact. The rest of them might have fallen for her act, but he’d be damned if she was going to sell him on it. Any business they did was with as few words as possible, and he even refrained from buying the alcohol she was selling in town that she supposedly brewed herself. 

The day of the heist finally came, and Ward and the others waited for news of the operation. Penny Hornwright returned a day early and confirmed that the vault’s walls had been breached but it had cost them the Motherlode, raising everyone else’s hopes to ridiculous heights. Ward, however, held off on any celebration until Paige himself returned with their infiltration team in tow. He knew as soon as he saw their expressions that things hadn’t gone according to plan, and noticed immediately that Savoy was not with them. 

Paige told him the full tale later, after he’d had a few beers. The vault was far from empty, and there’d been piles of gold beyond what the heist team had carried back to Foundation. There might even have been more of that, if Savoy hadn’t decided she was splitting Foundation’s share with the raiders. Cut and run with her own portion of the treasure. 

And  _ still, _ Paige defended her. Asked Ward and the rest that knew to keep the situation quiet, asked that they scale back their plans for expansion to what the gold they had could afford. It was more than Ward could bear. So the next time Savoy trudged into Foundation, he dropped the log he’d been splitting and followed her, axe still in hand. 

She led her brahmin into the marketplace like she always did, straight up to Sunny’s Kitchen to unload her shipment of booze, but she’d only gotten one crate of bottles down from the animal’s back before Ward’s voice stopped her. 

“Foundation doesn’t want your business, vault dweller,” he declared, loud enough for most market patrons in the vicinity to hear. A few turned to see what the commotion was, and their eyes widened when they saw the axe he was pointing at the woman in the black cowboy hat. 

Savoy hoisted her crate of moonshine to rest on one hip and put her hand on the other. “That so?” 

Ward lowered the axe and stalked toward her, ignoring confused looks from Derrick, Samuel and a number of other settlers. “You may have convinced Paige that what you did was the right thing to do, but me? Not a chance. You can go peddle your dishwater to those imbeciles at the Crater, if you care about them so much.” 

“Ward, what the hell are you on about?” Sergeant Thompson asked as he passed her. “Stand down.” 

Ward ignored her and kept his eyes fixed on Savoy. He expected her to be dismissive, to brush him off like she’d always brushed off his accusatory looks, but instead she slammed her crate of bottles onto a nearby barrel and turned to him, hands balled into fists. 

“You weren’t  _ there,” _ she retorted. 

“You’re goddamn right I wasn’t,” Ward snarled. “If I had been, maybe Foundation would’ve had the fair shake it deserves. Instead, it got  _ you.” _

Thompson must have decided he was beyond reasoning with, and he felt her trying to wrest the axe from his hand. He pulled it back, close to him, and as he turned to warn her off he caught sight of Samuel’s back disappearing into the lift that descended to Founder’s Hall. 

“Let it go, Ward!” Thompson barked. “She’s got as much right to do business in town as any other merchant. More than some, I’d say.” 

“Aye, Ward,” Derrick added, moving to help Thompson as he did. “She ain’t hurtin’ nobody.” 

“She hurt  _ all _ of us,” Ward argued. “Do you know what she did, in that vault? You know she split our share, our rightfully-earned gold, in half with those… those  _ marauders _ up at the Crater? Who is  _ she _ to make that call?” 

The gathering crowd around them gasped, or at least those in the front did. Savoy’s eyes remained fixed on Ward and she stood her ground. Didn’t even reach for her gun. 

_ “Ward,” _ Thompson hissed. “You know what Paige said-” 

“To  _ hell _ with what Paige said.” Ward wrestled the axe back and chucked it on the ground between him and Savoy. It bounced in the dirt of the marketplace and skidded to a stop at her feet. She looked down at it, then up into his eyes again, alight in fury. 

“Explain it to me,” he demanded. “Explain it to all of us. Or get out.” 

“That’s  _ enough.” _

Paige’s voice cut through the sudden silence, and the crowd around Sunny’s stand parted to let their unofficial leader through. His overalls and hands were full of black grease, like he’d dropped everything in the middle of a mechanical fix to come resolve the matter. He probably had. 

“She doesn’t owe you an explanation,” Paige went on, accepting a rag that Samuel offered from his shadow. He wiped his hands clean with it, eyes downcast. “What’s done is done. We’ll move on, regardless.” 

“Undoubtedly,” Ward agreed. “But not with her. She chose them over us, Paige.” 

“She chose us  _ both,” _ Paige replied forcefully. “It wasn’t the decision you or I would have made, but it’s still too early to tell if it was the wrong one. Let it lie.” 

“Bullshit.” 

Paige’s eyes narrowed. “You of all people should know the importance of second chances, Ward.” 

The two of them glared at each other, Savoy momentarily forgotten. Finally, Ward shook himself free of Thompson and Derrick’s grip and squared his jaw. “Fine,” he said. “Have it your way.” 

He strode off toward his trailer, the rushing blood in his ears enough to drown out whatever the crowd was murmuring. All the while, he could feel eyes on his back, and he was certain it was Savoy watching him leave. 

Ward spent the rest of the afternoon drinking a beer on his back porch, looking over the fortifications to the south. His trailer was close enough to the precipice that settlers didn’t walk by, and the far-away conversations of the guards on duty didn’t carry. He didn’t even bother to pull out his meditative journal. He already knew he had nothing good to add to it. 

The sun sank low in the west, squat and red against the settlement walls, and he could hear the brahmin lowing as they were driven inside for the night. He tossed his empty bottle into a trash can and went inside, sliding the door to the overlook shut. 

Not ten minutes later, there was a knock on it. Annoyed, Ward yanked it back open to find the last person he expected. 

“Hey Ward,” Savoy said, her yellow hair bathed in the blood of the sunset beneath her black hat. 

Ward tried to yank the door shut again, but her hand flashed out and held it in place. “You wanted to talk. So let’s talk.” 

“Get the  _ fuck _ off my deck.” 

She raised her eyebrows. “So all that belly-aching back there about an explanation, that was just noise?” 

“I don’t need your explanation,” Ward growled. “I already know you used us and tossed us aside. But Aubrie, Jen, Elsie and Davie? Everyone else? You owe them one.” 

Savoy’s expression hardened. “If I’d meant to do that, I’d have left you with nothing, asshole. Taken my winnings and moved to Vegas, lived like a queen.” 

“Then why didn’t you?” Ward demanded, stepping through the doorway again and backing her up to the porch railing. “Because the way I see it, you just split our share with Crater to add insult to injury. What the hell are a bunch of raiders going to do with a pile of gold, and how would it ever be any better than what we planned to do here? Hell, what are  _ you  _ going to do with it?” 

She drew herself up to her full height to meet him, chin high. “Do you really wanna know?” 

“Yeah, I do.” 

“Fine.” She put her hands on his chest and pushed him backward. “But you’re gonna have to work for it.” 

Ward staggered and his hat fell off, but he caught himself before he ran into the trailer’s door frame. “What in the-” 

“I’m camped outside the walls tonight, thanks to you,” Savoy said, advancing a few steps toward him. “So if you want your answers, you’re coming with me and we’re settling this.” 

He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere with you, vault dweller.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Hand to god, you’ll make it back here safe. But I’m not about to start shit in the middle of town with you again, or I’ll lose  _ all _ my Foundation business instead of half of it. Get your hat and follow me.” 

With that, she swung herself over the deck railing and leaped down to the packed earth below. She’d disappeared around the corner of the trailer before Ward could so much as get a word out. He cursed under his breath and paced once, twice, before jamming his own hat back on his head, pulling the trailer door shut and hopping the railing as well. 

He spotted her ducking through a doorway beneath a guard post, and he followed her out into the fields of crops that Foundation tended beyond the log walls. They passed rows upon rows of corn and tatoes, but she kept going even when they ran out of tilled earth and stepped into the long grass and scrub. She followed a game trail until it led to a clearing nestled in the brush, at the edge of which sat a small tent, a bored-looking pack brahmin and a crackling campfire. 

“Easy there, Nettles,” Savoy said when one of the brahmin’s heads stirred, chuffing curiously at their entrance. “Just me.” 

She shrugged off her coat and began unhooking the leather straps and various weapons about herself. “Go on, then, lay ‘em out where I can see them,” she said, tossing two combat knives down on top of her railway rifle and ammunition belt at the brahmin’s side. 

Reluctantly, Ward unbuckled his pistol holster and dropped it on the ground on the other side of the campfire. He unearthed a pocket knife from inside a boot and set it down on top of the gun. 

Savoy chuckled. “That’s it? Would’ve expected more from a former raider.” 

“I wouldn’t need weapons to kill you,” Ward said before he could stop himself. 

He regretted the words before they were even out, but Savoy just laughed. “That so? Then let’s see it.” 

Ward opened his mouth to ask her what the hell she was on about, but the question caught in his throat when she started unbuttoning her shirt. He stared at her as she shrugged it off, revealing a black tank top underneath. 

Savoy folded the shirt over and set it down atop her rifle. She straightened up and started stretching her arms. “Come on. Let’s do this.” 

“What-” 

She curled a hand into a fist and jabbed the air. “Spar. You know. Take out some aggression.” 

Ward took a step backward. “Bad idea.” 

Savoy shrugged. “You need your answers, I need the practice, and we both want to throttle each other. Come on, Ward. I promise I’ll leave your pretty face intact.” 

_ “No.”  _

She sighed, frustrated, and turned to fumble with her brahmin’s packs. She pulled out a solid bar of gold and held it up, glinting in the firelight. “Throw this in as well?” she asked. 

Ward swallowed hard, and anger rose higher in his chest. She was mocking him. His hands went to the buttons of his plaid shirt, and it fell next to his gun along with his hat. 

Savoy grinned and cracked her neck. “Now we’re talking.” 

She set the gold bar down by the brahmin and approached from around the campfire, tying her hair up as she did and feeling out the terrain with her boots. Ward simply waited, one foot forward, fists at his sides. 

When she got close enough, Savoy tossed out an experimental jab, and Ward’s arm flew up to block it. She exhaled happily and shook her head slightly, pleased, but he refused to react. He caught her next jab, too, and the one after that, until she was dancing around him tossing a fist at any perceived opening. Ward merely spun to face her, unmoved by her onslaught, and little by little her smile disappeared. 

As he blocked yet another of her punches, her eyes fell on the tattoo on his left forearm.  _ “I’m better than this,” _ she read. “What’s it mean?” 

Ward’s grimace deepened. “That’s not for you.” 

_ “Ohhhh.” _ Savoy smiled, breathing hard from exertion. “A little reminder of your old days? Weren’t much paying attention to that when you came after me with an axe this afternoon.” 

She was goading him, and Ward was fed up with it. After his next block he retaliated with an elbow jab. She barely ducked it but she managed to pop up and knock the back of his head with her own elbow and stumble him. Instead of taking advantage of the opening though, Savoy waited until he’d steadied again before resuming her onslaught. Her mistake. 

Ward ducked to dodge her next two punches, and the second one unbalanced her enough to leave her open for him to grab her and pin one arm to her side. She pummeled his back with the other, and when her knee came dangerously close to his inner thigh he spun her away from him. Her yellow ponytail swung in the firelight, glinting just as fiercely as the bar of gold on the ground. 

“Why’d you do it?” he demanded. “Why give what we earned to those animals?” 

Savoy spat on the ground between them. “What  _ you _ earned? Who did all the fucking work, Ward? Who made you a vaccination so you wouldn’t all die of the Scorched plague within a month of moving here? Who tracked down Penny Hornwright and convinced her to take her talents here? Chased down a million robots so we could get her giant drill working right again and get Fields the tech he needed? Were you the one who crawled into a communist hole to rescue Jen’s mom and get that goddamned suit?  _ Fuck.” _

“Paige gave you everything you asked for along the way and more,” Ward argued. “They followed you in and you broke your promise in front of them, for what? Meg and her kind don’t shell out gratitude, and they don’t want to rebuild this world. They’d rather see us all burn.” 

“You’re wrong.” Savoy shook her head. “I don’t know what gang you ran with, but she and her kind aren’t there yet. They’re scared and they make mistakes, but they’re doing everything Foundation is to survive. They need a chance to be better, and I gave it to them.” 

“What about  _ our _ chance to be better?” Ward roared, advancing on her. “When their gold’s gone, spent on liquor and chems and ammunition, what then? Are we supposed to hold the Crater up when it’s all squandered, keep feeding their hungry mouths and holding ourselves back while we do?” 

It was her turn to block, one swipe after another as he backed her up toward the edge of the clearing. Her jaw was set, and the campfire’s embers burned in her eyes. 

“I gave them one chance,” she replied breathlessly, when he finally paused. “They’ll have to prove they deserve more. But yeah, I made that choice instead of you or Paige or whoever. And now you’re gonna live with it.” 

Ward’s jab caught her on the shoulder. “You’re still not answering my question, vault dweller. Why’d you do it?” 

She dropped her hands abruptly, and it took all he had not to smash a fist into her side. He stumbled awkwardly forward instead, and she pushed him back to arm’s length. 

“Because,” she said, between their heavy breaths. “I’d rather you were angry at me about what I did than angry at them.” 

They were silent for a few seconds, breathing hard until their lungs caught up. Then Ward began to laugh. At the naiveté, the arrogance, the absurdity of it all. Savoy joined him, nervous at first, then raucous, and they fell into the grass beneath the fading pink of the sky. 

“You’re an idiot, Savoy,” Ward said finally. 

“Maybe so.” Savoy took a deep breath and let it out toward the emerging stars. “Is it so wrong of me to try to prevent a fight between you and Crater by making myself the bad guy?” 

“You should’ve just given them your share.” 

“I’m a businesswoman, Ward.” She propped herself up on her elbow and looked at him. “Besides, most of my share is gone. I traded it to those secret service suits for tech. Tech I shared with Paige  _ and _ Meg.” 

He didn’t respond, so she went on. “Those agents… they’re prepping for a government that’s not coming. Ward, I’ve seen what’s left of the United States leadership, and there’s nothing there. Nothing good, nothing constructive, and nothing living. They’re guarding a vault of gold that will have no meaning in a matter of years, and the sooner they realize that, the better, but in the meantime we need to play their game so we can give what’s left of humanity ― meaning Foundation  _ and _ Crater ― a fighting chance.” 

“It still wasn’t your decision to make,” Ward murmured, all animosity drained from his voice. “And you know it.” 

“Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to make hard decisions for other people. People I don’t know, people I’ll never meet.” 

Her voice cracked for an instant, and Ward looked over at her. She was staring off at the fire, letting the light of its flames dance over her face, making the sweat from their sparring into a bright sheen on her forehead. Ward didn’t know what she was seeing, but he knew it wasn’t the fire. 

As he watched her, she shook herself out of it and looked back at him. “Round two?” 

Ward shrugged and stood, squaring up once again. Savoy wiped her face with her tank top, exposing a stomach rife with scars for an instant before bringing her own fists up. Their fight became a dance, more fluid as they found each other’s weak points and tendencies, and they’d made a full circle of the clearing by the time Savoy threw herself at Ward in an all-out attack that ended with her back on the ground and her arms pinned above her head. Ward was about to let her up again when she broke one hand free and pulled his head down to kiss him. 

Her lips shocked him into stillness for an instant, then they were tearing at each other, hands racing to undo what buttons, buckles, zippers were left on them. She had her teeth on his neck when he hoisted her up, wrapped her legs around his waist and carried her over to the fire where they collapsed again, their own ferocity preventing them from reaching the tent. He got her ragged jeans down and she kicked them free as she slipped a hand into the open front of his pants and freed his cock, already rigid from the feel of her tongue on his skin. 

Ward grabbed her by the hair and tilted her face up before she could go any further. “Suck it.” 

Savoy obeyed, taking the tip of him softly, slowly into her mouth, then pushing deeper until he could feel her lips around his base. He groaned and pressed back until he could go no further. When she withdrew, the cool night air against his newly-wet skin was a rush, and her warm mouth rolled up to meet his thrusts over and over. 

Ward fucked her mouth until he felt like he was on the edge of bursting, until he couldn’t take it anymore and dragged her up off her knees toward the tent. What they were sharing was less a kiss and more of a devouring, her nails raking marks into his back and their teeth leaving bruises up and down each others’ shoulders. The fingers of her right hand were wet, and the slickness that greeted his cock when he pushed at her entrance confirmed his suspicions about what she had been doing while he’d kept her mouth busy. 

She moaned with satisfaction when he buried himself inside her, pumped in and out a few times to find her limits before hitching one of her legs up over his chest and setting a blistering pace. It was too much for her to keep up with in the position he held her in, but whenever he slowed to keep himself from finishing too soon her hips bucked toward him mockingly, like she was daring him to keep going, to spill everything he had and see red again. 

He thought he understood, as they writhed together on her bed roll while the fire threw shadows against the tent canvas. Maybe she’d taken some of his sense of control away, in a way she couldn’t fix, but tonight she’d given him back what control she could. Or maybe she’d just wanted a good fuck. Maybe he had, too. 

Either way, he brought his thumb down over her clit and measured his thrusts more carefully until she arched her back beneath him and her legs shook. She was still shuddering when he increased his speed and slipped out to shoot pearly strings of liquid across her stomach. 

They sat motionless again amid deep breaths, melded together by their shared catharsis and the usual stickiness. Eventually, Ward moved first. He reached over to where his own tank top had been abandoned and dabbed his mess off of her. She watched him, and even though it was dark, he could have sworn she was smirking. 

They dressed again in silence, pulling on clothes outside with their backs to each other. When Ward turned back toward her to retrieve his weapons, he found her holding out the bar of gold she’d offered him earlier. 

He took it hesitantly. “Thanks.” 

“My pleasure.” She frowned. “You can tell Paige and the others what I think about Crater, if you want. But I’d rather they just think I took the gold because I’m a selfish bitch with dollar signs in her eyes. For some reason, that’s easier to understand than someone trying to game the system so that we all come out on top of the people who got us nuked.” 

Ward nodded. “Understood.” 

She bit her lip and nodded back, before taking a seat before her campfire. Ward headed off toward the lights of Foundation, leaving the vault dweller and the paths they’d worn through the grass of the clearing behind. 

As soon as he got back to his trailer, Ward tossed the gold bar and the wadded-up tank top in his laundry basket and headed for the communal showers. To his surprise, Paige was at one of the picnic tables along the way, eating a Fancy Lads snack cake and looking up at the stars. 

“Ward,” he said, standing up quickly as soon as he caught sight of the other man. “We should talk about earlier.” 

Ward held up a hand to stop him. “We don’t need to. I’m sorry I made a scene.” 

Paige nodded. “You weren’t exactly wrong. She does owe us an explanation that makes sense, but I don’t know how to go about asking her for one. Or at least, how to go about getting an honest answer from her.” 

Ward looked Paige over and took a deep breath. The smell of Savoy still clung to him, salty with a hint of sugary moonshine mixed in. 

“Let me handle it,” he said, clapping Paige on the shoulder before walking off in search of a cold rinse. 


	3. Weasel

“Back for good, you little rat, or just looking for scraps?” 

Weasel took a deep breath and turned to silently raise an eyebrow at Creed. He smirked, like this was the reaction he’d been looking for. 

“What, too good to talk to the likes of me, now?” he asked, crossing his arms. “Figures. Better keep that chipper translator of yours quiet anyway, that Amish fucker isn’t around to keep you out of trouble.” 

He pushed away from Molly’s counter and wandered off toward the stage, where a few other raiders were tuning instruments and threatening to start up a set. Weasel sighed thankfully and went back to her cranberry moonshine. 

She’d wandered in that morning to let Fisher know that she’d tracked down and done in that snallygaster that had been harassing the outpost camp west of Grafton, only to be told that he and the giant, Soviet bastard were out on a scouting mission in the Mire. Now she was debating whether or not to stick around until they returned, dodging suspicious glances and sneers, or just skip town until a later date. 

The problem was that she needed the pay. No one else at the Crater wanted to deal with her except Fisher, so she wasn’t going to see any caps until he got back and personally handed them to her, and she needed to eat in between now and then. Honestly, she shouldn’t have bought the beer, but Molly was running a special on local brews and alcohol had been exactly what the doctor ordered. She threw it back and savored it. 

The redheaded Bostonian bartender leaned over the bar across from her and grinned. “Maybe that’ll give you the liquid courage you need to put a new hole in Creed’s face,” she remarked. “God knows that son of a bitch deserves it.” 

Weasel bobbed her head noncommittally, then pointed a finger at the glass with a quizzical look. 

Molly caught her drift. “New batch,” she answered. “Just came in an hour ago, and it’s so damn slick compared to the dishwater around these parts that it usually disappears within the week it arrives. Savoy runs it down now and then.” 

Weasel swallowed hard before trying to speak in a low voice. As usual, the voice collar came out in a booming tone anyway. “THE… VAULT… WOMAN?” 

Molly laughed and slapped the counter. “Been waiting for you to have to say something. Yeah, 76. She came down with a new shipment and to talk to Meg.” 

She leaned around the side of her stand and pointed toward Raf’s trading post, where a pack brahmin was tied up, its two heads happily chewing cud. “That’s her cow. She’s still around here somewhere.” 

Weasel jerked her head toward the Crater Core, but Molly shook her head. “Nah, she and Meg finished up a while ago. I think Wren might’ve waylaid her with some scheme about tech. Why, you wanna meet her?” 

Weasel shrugged and finished her drink, then pushed the glass back toward Molly and stood up. Molly chuckled. “Don’t scare her off with that voice of yours, now. That woman brings in a fuck-ton of business.” 

With a grimace, Weasel nodded and made her way past the water purifiers and gutted vehicles that some of Meg’s gang were using as sleeping quarters. She avoided the toxic puddles that had gathered in the rutted walking paths like it was second nature, and when she found herself outside the ragged section of the space station that held the Crater’s radio equipment, she paused to listen. 

“Seriously, Wren?” A familiar voice rang through the metal skeleton of the station. “I’m not going back to Valley Galleria, that place is a fucking tomb surrounded by Scorched and gulpers.” 

“I need salvageable parts,” Wren argued in return. “If I could use any old scrap, I would, but it’s better if they’ve never seen the inside of a television set before I get a hold of them. _You_ know that.” 

“Look, I’ll keep an eye out, but I’m not planning to go east of the Divide until the stranglers are blooming again,” Weasel heard Savoy reply. “If I find something, I’ll send it through with Beckett on his next run.” 

“Fine.” 

There were footsteps on the rusted metal above, and the vault dweller emerged, looking thoroughly exasperated as she made her way down the stairs. She cut her sigh short when she caught sight of Weasel, though, and both of her eyebrows shot up. “Hi.” 

Weasel twisted her mouth up into something resembling sympathetic concern and nodded toward Savoy, then Wren’s operations. Savoy looked back over her shoulder and shook her head. “Ah, yeah. You do the kid one favor and she’s got you on the hook for life. What are you doing here? I thought you were avoiding this crowd.” 

“I CAME LOOKING… FOR FISHER,” Weasel answered, swallowing hard and glancing around. “BUT HE IS NOT HERE.” 

Typically, whenever Weasel had to use the words that that mad scientist had posthumously given her, she was overcome with a wash of embarrassment and anger. It didn’t come across through the interpreter at her throat because nothing did, but whatever goodwill or respect she might have earned before she opened her mouth was immediately lost. If she was lucky, people recoiled. If she wasn’t, she was openly mocked, or worse. Despite her gratitude to Meg’s gang for rescuing her and giving her something to communicate with, it was why she’d made a loner of herself and drawn back from the Crater as much as she could, roaming the Toxic Valley until she knew every bleach dogwood tree and crack in the ground. In time, the only one she talked to outside of necessity was Fisher, and she’d liked it that way. 

So when he’d sent her to look for Lucky Lou in that damned mine and then a vault dweller on her tail, she’d been loath to open her mouth and announce that she was already on the ghoul’s track. Savoy, much to her surprise, had only momentarily stumbled when she was met with the translator’s enthusiastic male tone instead of whatever she’d expected. They’d moved past introductions quickly, spurred by the obvious evidence of Lou’s desperation and the quaking of the mineshaft ceilings. Weasel noted that she didn’t press her or try to pull an explanation out of her about the interpreter, and when the two of them climbed outside once again with Lou in tow, she didn’t even try to engage her in relieved conversation. As soon as the three stepped into the light of the sunset, Savoy just sighed happily, put a hand on Weasel’s shoulder and gave her a grateful smile. Weasel had tried not to flinch, but the first touch she’d felt in ages still made her shiver involuntarily. 

They parted ways there, and Weasel hadn’t seen the woman since. Now, months later, Savoy looked a bit dustier and a bit more tired, but she still had that air of acceptance about her that had spelled surprise. Hell, she was actually _talking_ to her. 

“Oh yeah, Fisher.” Savoy nodded. “Had another job for you, I’m guessing? Hope it was an easier one.” 

Weasel shook her head and showed off the new chemical burn on her collarbone that she’d acquired while hunting her quarry. Savoy hissed sympathetically. “Tough little cryptid, huh?” 

“DEAD… NOW,” Weasel replied proudly. 

Savoy laughed and invited Weasel to follow her with a wave of her hand. They walked back to Raf’s stand together while Savoy filled the silence like she was talking to an old friend, commenting on Lou’s mood improvement and the latest batch of booze she’d cooked up. Weasel nodded along, not super interested but happy to have the protection of a respected party for a little while. She was so caught up in enjoying the other raiders’ dumbfounded looks that she almost missed it when Savoy started lamenting her impending trek back home. 

“Normally I’d take 97 to 61 and follow her down to 95, skirt Morgantown and Monongah, but I happen to know there’s a bunch of assholes shacked up in Grafton Steel right now that don’t want to work for their meals,” Savoy said, rolling her eyes while she tightened buckles and straps on her pack brahmin’s rig. “Beckett nearly lost Nettles going through there, last time he came down. I went all the way up to Clarksburg to avoid them, but that route just isn’t practical for me. Still.” 

She sighed and patted the brahmin on one of its noses affectionately. “What other options have we got?” 

“YOU LIVE… SOUTH?” Weasel asked. 

“Southeast,” Savoy replied vaguely. “Savage Divide.” 

“WHY NOT GO EAST FIRST?” 

The vault dweller looked at her, doubtful. “There isn’t a good trail east. Just cliffs.” 

Weasel shook her head vigorously. “NOT… EASY TO FIND. SOUTH OF THE… WOODEN WAR BUILDING WITH… HILL BEHIND-” 

“Whoa, hold on.” Savoy stopped her. “You need work? Why don’t you just show me how to get there?” 

Weasel frowned. While she needed her caps from Fisher, if he was off fucking around in the Mire she wasn’t going to see him anytime soon. 

“HOW MUCH?” she asked. 

Savoy checked the Pip-Boy on her wrist and felt around in her pockets a bit. “Can’t be more than, what, a day’s journey, right? Get me and Nettles up to the 98 safely and we’ll call it… 40 caps?” 

It was higher than Weasel had already expected but she couldn’t resist. “75.” 

“50.” 

“65.” 

“55 and meals.” Savoy’s eyes narrowed above a smirk. “Not a cap more.” 

Weasel held out her hand and Savoy shook it. The vault dweller smiled. “Alright then, rest up tonight and we’ll meet here at dawn. I’ll get us some smoked mirelurk fillets for the road.” 

* * *

Weasel led the way out of the Crater bright and early the next day, avoiding patches of drying mud from the previous night’s sudden rainshower. She usually traveled light, and adjusting her speed to account for the goods-laden brahmin and her owner was annoying at first, but they settled into a decent pace once they had climbed out of the steaming bottom of the Toxic Valley. 

The travelers found the old Highway 97 by mid-morning, and Weasel heard Savoy take a deep breath when they turned to follow it north instead of south. The cracked asphalt brought them quickly within view of Prickett’s Fort. Weasel found the old logging track that led east and they began to climb the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains before any of the historical site’s Mister Handy caretakers had spotted them. 

The overnight rains appeared to have spared this area, but Nettles the brahmin still had some trouble with some of the steeper slopes, and Weasel had to backtrack to coax the cow forward while Savoy pushed from behind. The two women were only about halfway up the trail by the time noon arrived, and when they found the next accommodating patch of level soil, Savoy threw her dark cowboy hat down on the ground and collapsed. 

“I feel like I just ran the Kentucky Derby,” she breathed, closing her eyes against the dappled sunlight. 

Weasel tied Nettles to a nearby tree and cocked her head. “WHAT IS THAT?” 

Savoy opened one eye and grinned. “Oh, you’re a post-war baby too? I used that one with Wren yesterday and she had no idea what I was talking about either.” 

Weasel frowned and sat down next to her. “I… DO NOT KNOW. I DO NOT… REMEMBER.” 

“Oh.” Savoy sat up. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to… sorry.” 

Weasel shook her head. “IT… DOES NOT MATTER TO ME. I HAVE NO MEMORY OF… BEFORE… THE BIG BOOM.” 

That made Savoy giggle. “The big boom, yeah. Tell you the truth, I don’t remember too much either. I was pretty young when they shut the door on us. But hey, I promised you meals.” 

She pulled a cloth-wrapped bundle from her backpack and offered a piece of smoked mirelurk. Weasel took it and began gnawing on it. Savoy unearthed a container of crumbly corn pone and a can of purified water, and the two of them shared the food and drink in silence while Nettles grazed the foliage nearby. 

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” Savoy said suddenly. 

Weasel looked at her, confused. 

“I mean, with me.” Savoy sighed. “I know you need that thing, but you also hate it. It’s obvious. At least, to me.” 

Weasel swallowed her bite of corn pone and stared at her suspiciously. 

“And I know Meg and her people saved your life, and that at this point everyone in the Crater knows who you are and that your voice box is gone, but come on, they’re assholes and just because they gave you that, it doesn’t mean you have to use it with everyone other than them. I mean, there’s other ways of talking.” Savoy picked up a pebble and tossed it over the side of the ledge they were sitting on. “And they took away your _name._ Your real name. Don’t you want it back?” 

She turned to look Weasel in the eye. “You could be the real you. _I_ want to know the real you.” 

Weasel gave her a frantic look and scrambled to her feet. This was too much, too fast, and it made her want to run down the mountain and back to one of her many hideouts scattered across the cracked earth far below. Savoy jumped up as well, and one of Nettles’ heads perked up in response. 

“I’m sorry,” Savoy said quickly, holding her hands out as if to calm Weasel. “That was a lot. It’s… it’s your life. Fuck my opinion.” 

“YES,” Weasel agreed, and she retreated to a higher rock ledge before the vault dweller could cast anything else about her world into doubt. 

* * *

Weasel stayed farther ahead the rest of the way up the trail, leaving Savoy to handle the brahmin’s hesitancy herself. The path grew a little narrower but became less steep, zigzagging the side of the mountain until it cleared the rock outcroppings that looked over all of western Appalachia. From there, it led straight into a dense forest at a gentle slope, wind rushing through the pines and through the fury in Weasel’s head. 

_The_ real _you._ Was she not real enough? The pain in her knees, the tree sap on her hands and the scars on her arms all felt real. So did the useless muscles in her throat, the collar around her neck and the memory of all the scathing words she’d heard since the Blood Eagles left her for dead. _Before_ the Blood Eagles left her for dead. Who was this woman to say she wasn’t real now, hadn’t been real since she lost her voice? Who was she to remind her that she had another name, once? 

She was so caught up in her anger that she completely missed the exposed tree root that tripped her up, and she fell hard on the ground. Tears sprang to her eyes and her breath went out of her with a sickening wheeze, but most devastating of all was the tiny crunch of the vox interpreter as it met a rock. 

Savoy gasped behind her, but she kept her distance as Weasel pulled herself up to her knees and tried to say something, anything. Nothing. 

She unhooked the translator’s collar. The red light on it had gone dark, and the little power box had wires peeping out. Weasel mouthed every swear word she knew and tried desperately to put them back into place, but it was no use. The collar was dead. 

“Does Fisher have another one?” 

Weasel turned on Savoy with her shaking hands curled into claws, expecting to find her smug, vindicated. Instead, she found the other woman wearing a look of genuine remorse. Despite her best efforts, the urge to strangle the moonshiner died immediately. It wasn’t her fault. None of it was. 

Weasel sighed and nodded. She pocketed the broken collar and stood up again, signaling that they should continue. She felt Savoy’s sorrowful eyes on her back before she heard her fall back into step. 

* * *

The sun was lowering itself in the west by the time they reached the winding, shattered concrete of Highway 98. Savoy smiled with relief as she stepped onto the road, and she retrieved a few strings of bottle caps from her pack. 

“Here you go,” she said, counting out 55 and handing them over to Weasel. “Thanks for showing me that shortcut, it’ll definitely come in handy. Provided it’s not raining and everything’s loosened up, anyway.” 

Weasel put her payment away and turned to head back the way she had come, but Savoy stopped her. “Wait. The sun’s about to go down. You’ll have to camp in the woods.” 

Weasel shrugged and nodded. Savoy shook her head. “Not here. Friend of mine told me there’s a group of those Mothman nuts living up here somewhere, and their red-eyed god supposedly comes out at night. It’s not safe.” 

In answer, Weasel unhooked a grenade from her belt and held it up. Savoy chuckled. “Yeah, I know how good you are with explosives. Please, there’s a place up the road where we won’t be bothered and we can get some rest before we go our separate ways. Plus I promised you meals. You know, plural.” 

Weasel gave her a long, hard look. Finally, she nodded and gestured to the road heading south. Savoy grinned and took the lead. 

Sure enough, less than a half hour from where they’d emerged, an enormous structure began to peek above the treetops ahead of them. Weasel craned her neck, straining to get a good look at the buildings with the sun glaring behind, but she was unable to until they rounded a rock face and the main entrance lay before them. 

She couldn’t help but gasp, and Savoy looked more than pleased with herself. “Welcome to the Palace of the Winding Path.” 

Even if Weasel had had words to offer, they would have failed her. She wandered forward into the silent courtyard, marveling at the silhouettes that glowed with new life in the colorful sunset. There was evidence of former encampments here, defense posts thrown together with raw lumber and the ragged remains of open-air tents, but they barely registered to her. Red-tiled round roofs crowned towers that rose from a crystal-clear lake to her left, strung together by wood-planked bridges over blooming bloodleaf. Marble pathways glowed everywhere, almost illuminating each step she took. Black and dark blue roofs tapered into graceful tips above the whole compound, and gold leaf glinted from every intricate design that met her eye. 

It wasn’t until she was at a grand set of stairs up to another courtyard that she realized that the wonderland atop the mountain was absolutely still. She turned back to Savoy with the question in her eyes. 

“It’s empty,” Savoy answered. “Has been for a long time, as far as I can tell. Come on, I’ll tell you what I know while we set up camp in one of the gazebos.” 

* * *

Weasel listened intently while Savoy unloaded Nettles next to one of the red roofs overlooking the lake and told her what history she had. Some cult, pre-war, looking to get high in peace and peddle their lifestyle to anyone who was interested. Then the nukes, the community’s survival, the deal with the Diehards. 

“And then one day they came over here to trade and found the place completely empty,” Savoy explained. “Everyone just disappeared. No trace. Spooky, right?” 

Weasel nodded and looked out over the palace. She couldn’t imagine a place like this bustling with people, anyway. 

“The Diehards moved in, some of them split off with Meg, and the rest wound up as Scorched,” Savoy went on, shouldering her sleeping pad and blankets with a grunt. “Some friends of mine cleared it out, but no one’s comfortable staying here for more than a few nights. They say it doesn’t feel right, somehow. So now it’s abandoned, and the rumors keep it that way.” 

She led the way up the stairs into the tower, where she deposited her supplies next to a golden railing and stretched. “We’ve got a bit of daylight left. You want to grab some firewood while I scout to make sure we’re alone, or vice versa?” 

Weasel held up two fingers and flipped them around. Savoy nodded. “Okay. Have fun exploring.” 

To the best of her abilities, Weasel did. She stepped carefully along the wooden bridges over the lake, where not even a ripple disturbed the surface of the water. She ran her hand along the rims of the dry fountains, wondering if the pipes that fed them still worked. She peered into rooms off the main courtyard that held upended tables, stools and bursting cushions, and finally ventured into the main palace. It was just as ornate inside as outside, with crystal chandeliers hanging down in the dusty air and even more broken furniture piled around the rooms. Eventually, Weasel found herself standing at the top of the main tower, staring down from a railing several floors above the carpet below, and she realized there was barely any more sunlight coming in through the stained glass windows. 

When she made her way back up the stairs to the campsite Savoy had picked, there was already a fire going. Savoy looked up at her curiously. “Thought a ghost had got you.” 

Weasel shook her head and sat down, warming her hands. She accepted the leftover corn pone and the Nuka-Cola that Savoy offered her, but neither of them broke the silence until Weasel cut her finger popping the cap off the soda bottle. 

It was only a nick, but it was still enough for Weasel to mouth “motherfucker” with feeling. Savoy caught the shape of the word on her lips and grinned. 

“Your translator,” she said. “You couldn’t swear with it, right?” 

Weasel shook her head and sucked the cut. Savoy shook her head, still smiling, then held her left hand up to her face before slamming her hands together. 

When she caught Weasel’s confused look, Savoy did it again, more slowly. _“Mother,”_ she said with her left hand held up before her, thumb touching her chin, palm facing to her right. Then she crashed her two hands together with two fingers held up on each. _“Fucker._ Motherfucker. In sign language.” 

Weasel took her finger out of her mouth and squinted, watching her mime it a few more times. She gestured for elaboration. 

“Billy Mendez,” Savoy explained, crossing her legs and settling in. “Kid I grew up with in the vault. His dad was deaf, so his whole family knew sign language, and he taught most of us kids the bad words you could say with it. His mom tried to teach us the rest of it, too. She thought it might be useful when we had to leave, might help us communicate without talking if we were ever in a situation that called for it. I only retained a little bit, but I still have all the swear words. I could teach them to you, if you wanted.” 

Weasel nodded eagerly, and they set about practicing. They covered all of the basics: “Asshole,” “bitch,” “shit,” “fuck,” “eat a dick,” all of the old favorites. A lot of the phrases incorporated the middle finger, which Weasel was more than familiar with using, and the pair of them gleefully tossed middle fingers at each other, the lake and Nettles chewing grass below them. Only after Weasel successfully strung together the phrase “eat a dick, you fucking cocksucker,” did she press Savoy to give her more common words: Eat, drink, danger, stop, go. 

“You’re picking this up fast,” Savoy complimented her after they’d run out of words to learn. “Better than I did. It’s impressive.” 

She tossed another branch onto the fire. “Listen… about what I said in the woods. I didn’t mean to insult you. I just wanted to let you know that there are more ways to speak than with a translator controlled by Meg’s gang.” 

She put her hand up to her mouth and wiggled her fingers in front of it. _“Talk._ That’s one.” 

Weasel stared at the fire. All this time, there’d been another option, and she’d had no idea. 

“Course, most people who don’t _have_ to know sign language don’t,” Savoy added. “Thanks to the Mendez family, most of the 76 alums have a little of it, but Foundation and the Crater don’t. Not that I know of, anyway. The vox is still a good backup.” 

Weasel nodded absentmindedly. What other options were out there that she thought had been permanently closed to her? 

Sensing her travel companion was lost in thought, Savoy rose from where she had been sitting. “I’m going to go wash up in the lake before turning in. Keep an eye out, will you?” 

Her footsteps faded away down the stairs, and Weasel curled up to hug her knees to her chest. The fire made the golden railing columns glitter like they were alive, and she was overcome with a feeling she hadn’t encountered for some time. 

She stayed like that for a bit, but she quickly grew too warm and decided to join Savoy. As she made her way down the stairs of the raised gazebo, she spotted the other woman by her brahmin, scratching its necks one by one and murmuring words of affection. 

“Nettles wanted some attention,” Savoy explained when Weasel drew near. “She’s a good girl, and she did a lot of work today, so…” 

Weasel nodded and gestured toward the lake. Together, they walked to its sandy edge and began undressing, Weasel peeling off pieces of armor fashioned from tires and Savoy shrugging off her heavy coat to reveal a Wavy Willard’s Water Park t-shirt. To Weasel’s surprise, Savoy didn’t stop there, and she watched as she stripped down to her underwear and bra before wading into the lake. 

Savoy turned and caught her staring. “Mirelurks don’t usually get this far up into the mountains, and I have yet to see a gulper or angler living in lakes this clean,” she explained. “Come on.” 

With that, she dove in, scattering the reflection of the moon on the surface of the water. Weasel slowly took off her own shirt and pants before leaving her rifle atop the pile of clothes and following Savoy. 

They swam without a word, gliding slowly around each other while they rubbed off the dirt of the road. Savoy’s blonde hair caught the moonlight effortlessly and feathered her freckled shoulders, and she looked up at the night sky with a longing that was painfully familiar to Weasel. 

Curiously, the shared swim didn’t bother her. Living alone in the wasteland had left her only truly comfortable with herself, and the addition of another person would typically put her on edge. Even more people together put her nerves sky-high, but for some reason Savoy didn’t sound the usual alarms. She hadn’t noticed it while they were on the trail together, but it was impossible to ignore now that they were here, basking in the beauty of a truly silent setting. 

When they returned to shore, they gathered their belongings and made their way up to the fire to dry off in its warmth. Savoy settled herself down and produced a wooden comb, with which she began to tease out her tangles. Weasel merely ran her fingers through her own dark hair, scattering water droplets that hissed when they hit the hot logs. 

Savoy smirked. “Here,” she ordered, patting the marble floor in front of her. “Free of charge.” 

Weasel scowled and sat down with her back to her. Immediately, she felt fingers at her scalp, tenderly sorting out the tousled locks with the comb. The rhythm soothed her, certainly, but it was a complete surprise to Weasel as well when she caught Savoy’s hand as it ran the comb down her cheek and kissed her fingers. 

Savoy froze and Weasel’s eyes flew open. It had been completely reflexive, unintentional, and yet her fingers curled like it was something she’d wanted for a while. Slowly, she kissed the knuckles at her cheek again. 

She felt Savoy withdraw her hand and set the comb aside, then scoot closer to her back. An arm slid past the right side of her waist and the hand reappeared. 

“You remember the signs?” Savoy asked softly in her left ear. “Do them with me. _Yes_ and _no.”_

Weasel made a fist with her right hand and shook it like she was knocking on a door, then pinched two fingers against her thumb. She felt Savoy nod at her shoulder. “Good. I’ll keep my eyes open, and if I go too far, use that second one. If you want me to keep going, tell me. Okay?” 

_Yes._

Savoy’s arm curled around her waist carefully and her lips pressed into Weasel’s neck. Weasel sank into her chest and closed her eyes again, letting her body relax for what felt like the first time in her life. She reveled in each kiss along her nape and jaw, the fingers rising to undo the bra clasp at her spine and ease the straps down her arms. At each pause, each hint of hesitation, she repeated the sign. _Yes. Yes. Yes._

Before long, Savoy held her naked in her lap, legs spread to let the warmth of the fire lick at her thighs. Weasel felt her wet her thumbs with her mouth, felt her use them to tease her nipples with maddeningly slow, circular motions, and she couldn’t keep the deep breaths of desire from escaping her mouth. Instantly, Savoy caught her face and turned her silent moan into a deep kiss, enthusiastic and sweet and tinged with something that tasted like a promise made good. Weasel bit her partner’s lip as they pulled apart, clinging to that taste for as long as she could. 

Savoy pinched her left nipple in response, and her other hand slid down to caress Weasel’s right leg. Outside, then inside, then up to her lower stomach, fluttering around the task at hand until Weasel hissed and signed the permission she was asking for. When those fingers slid down to spread her apart, Weasel wasn’t sure how much of the heat down there was from the fire anymore. 

The vault dweller stroked her softly, ran up and down her entrance and nudged her clit until she was slick before plunging a finger into her wanting depths. Weasel rocked to meet it, ground her hips into Savoy’s hand and brought a hand up to tug at the breast that wasn’t already receiving a firm massage. She shuddered as she fucked herself on that finger, followed the slow and steady pace, and Savoy rewarded her with a brush against her clit every time they slid together. 

When Savoy withdrew her hand to grab hold of her breast again, Weasel took her opening and spun to face her. She wrestled the other woman’s underclothes off and latched onto one of her perky tits, sucking and grazing the nipple with her teeth. Savoy groaned, and Weasel laid her out on the bedroll and blankets, switched breasts and ran a hand up her leg to squeeze her ass. She had freckles all the way down her chest and up her legs, and Weasel tried to trace every single one with her fingers and tongue until she was between her legs and she found one spot to focus on. 

Savoy moaned with pleasure as Weasel tongued her center, rolled her own nipples between her fingers and writhed with the gold in the firelight. She spread her legs and pulled Weasel up to her chest again, dragged her into a desperate kiss and positioned their clits against each other. “Tell me if you want this,” she demanded in a low voice. 

_Yes._

They slid against each other, breathing together and flipping over in turn as their energy began to crest. Weasel came first, her climax an inaudible wail into the moonlit night that left her quaking and reinvigorated. She propped Savoy’s leg up and ground into her, pressing and flowing until she responded in kind, her own release decidedly louder. 

Spent, the two of them lay breathing together, contentedly listening to the crickets chirping outside their shelter. 

* * *

The next morning, Savoy and Weasel shared a breakfast of pemmican and firecracker berries before walking out to the palace entrance together. Savoy tightened the packs on Nettles’ back before turning back to Weasel. 

“I guess this is goodbye,” she said. 

Weasel nodded, then cast her eyes around the area. She retrieved a small branch from the nearby brush and beckoned Savoy over. Slowly, she scratched some letters into a patch of dirt there, one by one. 

Savoy’s eyes widened, and she looked up in realization. “Is that…” 

Weasel nodded and patted her chest. Savoy looked down again and stared at the name on the ground. 

“Flatwoods,” she said finally. “The Mendez family settled in Flatwoods. Just outside of town, at the Green Country Lodge. I know you’ll probably get a new translator from Fisher anyway, but if you want to learn more sign language they can help you. Just tell Billy that you’re a… friend of Clem Savoy.” 

Weasel nodded and scratched the letters on the ground out again. She shouldered her pack into a more comfortable position and patted Nettles on the head. 

Savoy smiled. “Thank you,” she said, before signing it to match. “For everything.” 

_Thank you._ Weasel smiled too, and watched Savoy and the brahmin go before turning back to the north and the Toxic Valley.


	4. Beckett

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Contains major spoilers for Beckett's personal questline.

Beckett was in the middle of straining the mash for the latest batch of whiskey when he heard the familiar sound of boots on the stairs outside the station. The corner of his mouth turned up as he squeezed the liquid out of the bag and into the cooking pot before him, but he stuck to his task. He listened to those boots tromp around the main floor below, making their way from the front door to the kitchen, then over to the back porch before finally beginning to ascend the stairs to the second level. 

“Beckett, you up here?” Clem called, even as she rounded the corner of the loft’s landing. 

“Little busy,” he replied, holding the dripping bag aloft. 

“Oh, hey.” Clem smiled and straightened her glasses. “Earning your keep, I see. Thanks.” 

“No problem.” Beckett wrung the last bits of moisture out of the cloth and tossed it into the sink basin before wiping his hands with a rag. “The firecracker berry juice stings a bit, but that just means it’ll be a good batch, right?” 

“Right.” Clem hung her railway rifle up on a nearby weapons stand and shrugged off her dark overcoat. “You think the still can handle all of it at once, or do we need to divide it up?” 

“She should be able to manage,” Beckett answered, eyeing the pot’s contents. “How was the trip?” 

Clem rolled her eyes and hung her coat up next to the rifle. “Fine. Those bear cubs just north of Mountainside Bed & Breakfast are nearly grown now and they’ll be moving on soon. Never gonna get used to seeing Mama Bear standing in the middle of the road up to Foundation, though.” 

Beckett leaned back on the brewing station’s counter. “Did Nettles take it okay?” 

“Better than she used to, but I think her eyesight isn't what it was,” Clem replied. “I suppose we should look into getting a younger steer to keep her company and take her place when she gets too old for hauling. Do brahmin _get_ old, or are they like ghouls?” 

“No idea.” Beckett shrugged. “Never had one long enough to find out.” 

“Yeah, no one I know has, either.” Clem sighed and rolled up her plaid sleeves. “Maybe I’ll talk to Vinny at Big Bend, he and that Mayfield woman probably have an idea. Come on, let’s get this distilling and we can relax.” 

She hoisted the heavy pot up and poured the liquid into her copper still, her hands shaking slightly from the effort. Beckett moved to help her, putting his own hands over hers, and together they steadied the pour, preventing even a drop from escaping its fate. Clem held still for a beat after the last of it drained out, her fingers fluttering beneath his, and he quickly took the pot from her and set it aside. Beckett felt her eyes on him as he confirmed the temperature settings, valves and beakers were all at the ready, assuming she was double-checking his work. Instead, she said something that might as well have been a baseball bat to the back of his head. 

“Beckett, how do you feel about me?” 

The beaker he’d been placing to catch the unusable first yield clanged against the copper valves, and he bobbled it dangerously before slamming it back onto the counter. “I, uh, I mean, I-I-I- who says I feel anything, anything about- no, no, that’s not what I meant, you- we- uh… fine? You’re a fine… uh…” 

He spun around to find her watching his verbal and literal flailing with a look of sympathetic amusement, arms crossed. “I don’t mean as a business partner,” she clarified. 

Oh, _fuck._ “I wasn’t _trying_ to, uh, make- I mean, I don’t-”

“God, I didn’t mean to give you a heart attack.” Clem smirked. “I just figured we’ve been dancing around this for a while, and I’d rather get it out in the open than go on pretending.” 

“Pre-pretending? I’m not… uh, what gave you that-that idea?” Beckett stammered. 

The amusement disappeared, and Clem let her arms fall to her sides. “You’re not… oh. I just thought… never mind.” 

She was gone before he could manage even one coherent sentence, back down the stairs and out of the station by the sound of her steps. Beckett clapped a hand to his forehead and wiped it down his face before turning back to the brewing station. 

* * *

It had been half a year since the raggedy blonde whirlwind had blown through the door of his prison in the Rollins labor camp excavator and nailed the guard to the wall with a smattering of railway spikes. She said her name was Savoy, and she’d seemed surprised to find a still-living hostage inside a nest of Blood Eagles, so much so that she offered up her own camp as a temporary home until he got back on his feet and lost his pursuers. Hell, she even took out a chunk of them herself that same day, just freeing him and trying to get his belongings back. 

Beckett had been surprised himself when she retrieved a loaded brahmin from under a nearby overpass and led him east toward the mountains. They passed up every ruined town, settler plot and raider base along the way, and with each step he began to wonder just who the hell he’d agreed to travel with. When she took him up 62 to the Whitespring train station and tied the brahmin to a post for the night, he’d sunk into an overstuffed armchair and asked her why she’d been traipsing around the Ash Heap in the first place. She just shrugged, said something about trading with a “purveyor,” and tossed him an unlabeled bottle of beer that tasted like a kiss from an assaultron. It was pretty damn good. 

Savoy wasn’t very forthcoming with any of his questions, but somehow Beckett found himself spilling his guts to her. That time he stole some Mentats from a wandering poet when he was young, how he had a kid brother, how he had wrongs to right and a whole lot of people he wanted dead. After a while Beckett had started to wonder if she’d drugged him with that beer, because he couldn’t shut the fuck up about his own problems and all she did was listen, nod occasionally and drink from her flask whenever she wanted to cover her own silence. He was still alive come morning, though, and she didn’t stop him when he followed her up the train tracks heading north. 

It was another full day of walking, skirting some pre-war Colonel Gutsy checkpoints and avoiding some Blood Eagles outposts before they crossed the bridge beside Seneca Rocks and a ramshackle train station came into view atop the next hill. 

“I didn’t know there was one of these up here,” he’d remarked as they drew close. 

That got her talking. Apparently it had never been an official transit stop, “merely a formality” when the government had taken an interest in the nearby observatory and thought they might need to bring in more people from around Appalachia, then shut it down before it even opened. Savoy had made some additions: Built a barn for the brahmin and chickens, planted crops, converted the upstairs into living quarters and the ticket booth into a kitchen. Her hands flew around her as she pointed at every windowpane and floorboard with pride. Beckett was even more baffled by this, until he spotted the Vault-Tec C.A.M.P. device under a workbench and the pieces started to fall into place. 

When he’d ascended to the second floor with her and spotted the still and fermenter was when they really started to speak each other’s language. She knew brewing and he knew drinks, and it came out that he’d always wanted to open up a bar. Her eyes lit up, and before he knew it, she’d offered him her back porch for the project. 

“I’m not using it for anything important,” Savoy said with a wave of her hand. “It’s yours. For as long as you want to stay here.” 

He couldn’t turn that offer down. Within a month, he had the counter built, and she gifted him the sign with the radstag skull tacked over his name. His first customer was a super mutant named Grahm, who ordered straight vodka until he’d drunk three bottles and Savoy cut him off. Business never really boomed thanks to their remote location, but there were enough travelers walking the train tracks to entice with a drink and a safe rest stop to keep it open. The counter brought in a few caps besides the steady income Savoy earned on her long trips trucking moonshine across Appalachia. Pretty soon, Beckett even started seeing repeat visitors among the hopeful settlers, rowdy parties of raiders and the enterprising caravans. 

Truthfully, Beckett was glad of the company, however sparse. Savoy was gone a lot, delivering booze far and wide and doing more than a few jobs on the side. When she was home she typically hid upstairs anyway, plotting out routes, counting caps and working on her next batch of whatever. Most of the people who came through just assumed it was his homestead up here in the mountains, and he didn’t bother correcting them. He knew a woman who wanted her space when he saw one. 

Every now and then, though, another former vault dweller would come by, Pip-Boy on their wrist and recognition in their eyes when they caught sight of his host. She greeted them all with smiles, took them in for the night if they asked and sent them away with a free bottle of something, usually a hard lemonade. 

It was about three weeks since the bar had opened, after one of these vault dweller visits, when Savoy came stomping down the stairs, climbed on top of one of Beckett’s stools and took off her ever-present black cowboy hat. “Okay,” she said. 

“Okay what?” 

“The Blood Eagles.” She looked madder than a mirelurk king. “Motherfuckers flayed and strung up a family I used to visit, near Sutton. Let’s wipe them out.” 

There couldn’t have been sweeter music to Beckett's ears. Better still, Savoy was unstoppable when she set her mind to something. She listened to his gathered intel, offered information of her own and strategized with him before they struck the wretched gang’s hideouts. And the sound of her railway rifle burying spikes into his enemies’ heads? Symphonic. 

Hell, Savoy even agreed to help him gather friends to their cause, which required some extra legwork. All of it meant miles and miles of traveling together, and Savoy started to mix the businesses of booze and blood as they went. She introduced him to her customers and contacts in the morning, rained death and destruction at his side in the afternoon, and wrapped it all up at the end of the day with conversation over a campfire. If Beckett had let his guard down before, it was somewhere at the bottom of the cranberry bogs now. She knew it all: Things he’d stolen, people he’d killed, lives he’d ruined. Every night he convinced himself he’d gone too far, blown his shot at finishing things and sent himself back into homelessness, and every sunrise he was relieved to see that she was still there, still letting him stick around. 

It was after they discovered the Claw had taken his brother, after he’d broken down in the middle of the Eye’s wrecked lab and admitted that it was all his fault, that she pulled a handkerchief from her overcoat and reached up to wipe the blood and tears from his face. 

“I’m here for you, Beckett,” she’d said, looking up at him meaningfully with those big, hazel eyes. “And I promise you, if they’ve harmed Frankie in any way, I’ll rip them apart with my bare hands.” 

He realized then that he still knew so little about her, this woman hiding in the mountains away from the rest of her people. He pushed his curiosity off out of necessity, and they found themselves outside of the Watoga Underground within the month, armed to the teeth and hot on the trail of the Blood Eagles’ last elusive leader. Savoy had so many belts of ammunition hung around her that Beckett swore she shouldn’t have been able to walk, and she had one hand on the door handle before he stopped her. “I don't even know your whole name,” he said. 

“It’s Clementine,” she replied, swinging the door open for him. “You can call me Clem. And stop worrying, I don’t plan on dying here today.” 

She hadn’t. Neither of them did. Of course, it didn’t end like they’d expected, but when they finally climbed back to surface level and took in breaths of air that weren’t filled with dust, Beckett realized that he’d been terrified of losing her, and that itself was a dizzying feeling. They made their way home to the train station in the mountains and just like that, their grand adventure was over. Back to tending the bar and brewing beer on separate floors. He worried for a week that maybe he’d worn out his welcome, until she was back on one of his barstools and offering him a permanent job. 

“Assistant brewery and distillery representative,” she said, sliding the piece of paper across the counter to him. “Renewable contract. It’s starting to get to the point where I can’t do this all by myself, and you’re already more than capable of running deliveries. I’ll teach you the rest.” 

She was true to her word, once he’d scribbled his initials at the bottom of the page. She even gave him the northern route as soon as he was comfortable with it. Leading Nettles the brahmin down into the forest and through the ravines of the Toxic Valley, looping around to Helvetia, then Flatwoods, up to Grafton and the Crater, became second nature. It gave Clem a chance to work on some more hands-on concoctions of hers, and it gave him the fresh air and time he needed to accept that he could make this life work. 

The time Beckett spent alone on the road brought back the questions he had about Clem, and he started making leading inquiries at his delivery stops. Most of the answers he got back just led to more questions. 

“Seen her take down a scorchbeast by herself, roun’about Charleston, mmm-hm,” grunted the trapper with the opossum hat that was the latest character to take up residence at Twin Pine Cabins. 

“She’s almost as good as Wren with tech,” offered Molly, the resident bartender at the Crater. “Half the time she brings it back here, it’s already patched up. And some of that shit is military-grade, the kind of things you wouldn’t find outside a high security-clearance bunker.” 

“I heard the vault dwellers were trying to save Appalachia,” said a random yellow protectron he found wandering outside one of Clem’s emergency caches. “One more bomb should do it- right on top of Vault 76!” 

It was Duchess, the owner of the Wayward outside Flatwoods, who finally gave him the rough history of the Vault 76 residents following their Reclamation Day, her eyes narrowed in suspicion throughout the story. Beckett was pale under his sunglasses by the end of it, and the aging proprietor popped open an Old Possum to steady him. 

“You’re tellin’ me that you’ve been livin’ with that woman for months now, and ya didn’t know about all that?” she asked. “Oh darlin’, why the hell didn’t ya just ask her?” 

But Beckett didn’t ask questions. Well, he did, but he didn’t ask _Clem_ questions. She’d dodged around all of the ones he’d thrown at her early on, so he’d figured she was in some kind of trouble like him. Sure, she seemed to be on good terms with almost everyone they met on the road, everyone that had a drink at his bar, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t some past she was running from. It wasn’t his business- was it? 

What Duchess had said, though- the scorchbeasts, the nukes, the battle in the bog- it ate at him, the whole way back to the train station Clem called home, and he couldn’t help but blurt out what he’d heard the next time he laid eyes on her. She looked almost crestfallen when he told her, like she didn’t want to talk about it, but the stories came out little by little as she began teaching him how to distill the hard liquors and brew the beers she was so proud of. 

It usually started with commentary about the ingredients that went past the basics, into recollections of a dead West Virginia and the vault dwellers that spilled into it, wildly unprepared. How she got a faceful of searing acid the first time she encountered a firecracker berry bush. That she’d cried the first time she bit into a snaptail reed and tasted the natural sugar. How she’d saved Nettles from a pack of wolves and nursed her back to health, then found the cow licking glowing sap from nearby trees and tapped them for herself. 

The stories got longer and darker as she taught him her own, personal trade secrets. How she and a friend stole the Nuka-Cola Dark recipe from inside the Kanawha plant while she was helping her overseer manufacture a vaccine for the Scorched plague, but her friend hadn’t made it out. That the best Pickaxe Pilsner knockoff she’d ever made came from a colony of glowing fungus inside Allegheny Asylum, growing around the skeletons of the Appalachian Brotherhood of Steel. How she’d run out of water helping her people infiltrate a nuke silo, so she poured together a flask of her first attempt at vodka and a jar of lemonade and passed it around instead. That she knew tarberries glowed blue inside high-radiation zones, but she still couldn’t figure out how to reverse-engineer Nuka-Cola Quantum. 

Through their time spent together over the brewing station, Beckett wound up doing something he found difficult to do around Clementine Savoy: Shutting up and listening. And the longer he listened, the more that feeling he’d had outside the Watoga Underground grew and grew until it was like it was living in the train station with them, standing over Clem’s shoulder and pointing at her with an insidious smile on its face. _You know you want her._

He knew that feeling was there now, breathing down his neck while he waited for the first yield to drip out of the still, mocking his racing mind and heart. He didn’t trust it. Anytime he’d felt this close to someone before, he’d pushed that thing down and pushed that person away. No time, no certainty, no mercy from the gangs he’d given his youth to and traded any hope of normalcy for. And now all of that was gone, and she’d gifted him so much time and safety and mercy, and he still couldn’t bring himself to trust it. 

Worst of all, he knew that she knew. His sunglasses couldn’t mask every longing look he tossed her way, and she started chuckling to herself whenever she saw him staring. Of course, she wasn’t exactly discouraging him from looking. Hell, she was _reciprocating._ She brushed up against him at every opportunity. She started shedding her coats and shirts more readily when indoors, leaving her plaids unbuttoned with nothing more than a bralette beneath. He’d catch her bending down to retrieve something from a trunk or kitchen cupboard, and she’d shake her hips playfully toward him or blow him a kiss while she did. She even asked him to hold her hair up while she worked a few times, even though he _knew_ she had hair ties, like she was looking for any excuse to have him put his hands on her. If he’d been less cautious and less inclined to smash his instincts down, he might’ve slammed her onto his bar and fucked her senseless by now. 

As he watched and waited for the liquid in the beaker to reach the 100-milliliter mark, Beckett fidgeted, trying to make sense of the mess in his head that was finally spilling into the real world. He knew, the first time that feeling had visited him in Watoga, that it would only be a matter of time before things came to a head, and now it just seemed like it was happening way too fast. But Beckett realized something as his breaths came faster and the whiskey began to fill up the waiting beaker. He trusted her. That alone was enough to make the rise and fall of his chest less erratic, and the feeling haunting him a bit less sinister. 

* * *

Clem had her boots kicked up on the table on the front porch, looking west with a tick blood tequila sunrise in her hand when he came downstairs later. He took the chair opposite her and watched the sun set over the barn and the pine trees, golden as the hair that hung around her shoulders and red as the drink in her hand. The stars were starting to pop out over Seneca Rocks by the time Beckett worked up the courage to clear his throat. “Hey, uh, Clem.” 

She didn’t move, just kept staring west while she swirled her glass around. “Yeah?” 

“Before you… take off again, I just have one thing I wanna say.” He swallowed. “What you’ve done for me, for my family? I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to repay you. But… I was kind of hoping you’d never bring… what you brought up… up.” 

She tilted her head forward slightly, her eyes sliding over to him with a skeptical look. “Mmm?” 

Fuck, he was blowing this. “You… you weren’t wrong. But see, I’ve never had anyone that wanted to get this close to me. It feels… strange? And it, uh… heh, it scares the hell out of me.” 

Nothing from her, just a silent look of consideration. What the hell did that look mean? He plunged forward. “If I-I-I couldn’t even keep my family intact, how is a… relationship with _you_ ever gonna work? I mean… w- uh, what if I mess things up?” 

Clem raised her eyebrows and a hint of a smile played around her lips. Okay, so she wasn’t mad, that was a start. “I know, I know, I sound crazy, but for _once,_ it’s… well, it’s not the chems talking. Does… does this change your mind about things? About us?” 

She left him hanging for what felt like years, tilting her drink around in the twilight and examining it thoroughly. “Would it scare you too much if I said no?” she asked finally. 

Beckett let out the breath he’d been holding in. “Uh… no. Well, maybe, I mean, I don’t… I don’t know. Is that your… how you-” 

Clem let out an amused sigh and set her glass down. “Breathe, Beckett, it’s okay. I’ll just be blunt. Yes, I still feel things for you. No, you don’t have to reciprocate if you don’t want to. Yes, you’ll still have a job here if you don’t, and I’ll drop it and we can go on being whatever we currently are. And no, I won’t hold it against you if you decide to leave anyway. I’ll even tear up the contract and put in a good word with whatever gang you want to run with next.” 

“No, no, don’t do that,” Beckett said quickly. “I’m not saying I don’t have- and I’m done running with gangs, you know that- it’s just, I have no- everyone I ever had was-” 

“Ohhhh.” Clem took her feet off the table. “No idea how it works. Got it.” 

Beckett looked down sheepishly. “Y-yeah.” 

Clem let a long breath out through her mouth and leaned forward in her chair. “Well the open secret is that nobody knows. But that’s kind of the beauty of it- you take things one step at a time, like everyone else does. You figure it out together.” 

“And you… wanna do that… with me.” 

She pushed her glass toward him. “Yeah. I do.” 

He looked up again and their eyes met. She was smiling at him, her eyes and posture and mouth giving him reassurance in every form, and all the words in Beckett’s head condensed into a single, world-ending desire. Before he could talk himself out of the feeling, he picked up her unfinished drink and downed it. 

It was enough of an answer for Clem, and she sat back in her chair again, beaming from ear to ear. Beckett, however, couldn’t stop his own stream of consciousness from flowing. 

“So, uh… I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now.” He was rambling. Oh god, he was rambling. “I’ve, actually, never been in a relationship with someone before. Wow, great start, right?” 

Clem was clearly trying to keep laughter from escaping her body, and her face was turning red from the considerable effort. Even though he knew he was already making a complete ass of himself, Beckett kept going. “Maybe I’ll just, uh, shut up and let this work out naturally. Yeah, that’s uh, probably best.” 

“Beckett?” 

“Yeah?” 

“It scares the hell out of me as well,” she admitted. “But I’m willing to give it a try.” 

He laughed. “Well, good to know I’m not the only one who feels that way. And uh, I dig your honesty.” 

“And,” she continued with a grin, “If you want to take it slow, that’s perfectly fine. I can wait. I don’t know if anyone’s told you this before, but you’re worth a wait.” 

* * *

And she did wait, much to Beckett’s relief. She even backed off her flirting a bit, giving him some more space when he was loading liquor into the fermenter or filling bottles or polishing bar glasses. In return, Beckett listened more, watched her with more than a lustful eye from behind his sunglasses. He noticed the way she mouthed numbers when she was counting out caps or measurements, noticed the way her back curved when she was reaching up to hang laundry on the clothesline, noticed the way her fingers drummed the barrel of her railway rifle as she cleaned it after every trip. He started to figure out how he fit into those moments, little by little. Keeping track of the numbers she mouthed and reminding her where she was when she lost count. Pulling the clothesline down so she didn’t have to stand on her tiptoes. Handing her the bottle of cleaning solvent and planting a kiss on the crown of her head when she turned to accept it. 

It was another few weeks before he finally reached for her while she was cooking a pot of radstag stew, gathered her into his arms and kissed her, fully and deeply. Feeling her sink into him with “Orange Colored Sky” playing on the radio was better than any chem high he’d ever ridden. 

They kissed constantly after that, every embrace as intoxicating as the liquor they sold. Beneath the bed sheets on the clothesline, blowing in the wind. Behind the bar, after he’d closed for the night and was counting his earnings. In the barn between chores, passing each other on the stairs, before every parting and after every return. 

She started coming to him in the evening, after the lights downstairs were already out and the cave crickets well into their chirping. The floorboard outside his room would creak, the door would swing open and she’d be standing there, ghostly in the moonlight, wearing just a slip and her glasses. He was usually still up reading old magazines by candlelight, and he’d move over and make room for her to climb in bed and join him. Sometimes she nestled into the crook of his arm for just an hour. Sometimes she stayed and held onto him for the whole night, peppering his shoulders and hands with kisses until she drifted off. 

It was on one of these evenings, after the pine trees had started to drop their orange needles and the cave crickets had abandoned the mountains, that Beckett slid from beneath his quilt, blew out his candle and padded across the hall. 

Clem had her door cracked, and its hinges squeaked when he pushed it open. She was sitting on her bed, rubbing healing salve on some new battle scars and wearing a flannel shirt over the top of her slip to combat the creeping chill of autumn. 

“Here,” he offered, taking the tin from her and dipping his own fingers into the mash of bloodleaf and thistle flowers. He knelt at the foot of the bed, slid a hand beneath her knee and gently rubbed the balm into the cuts and bruises. 

Clem let her head fall back, hissing slightly in pain as he worked it into her wounds. The salve easily covered the area but Beckett still had plenty on his hands, so he began massaging it in, down her leg until the mashed plants had smoothed her skin from knee to ankle. He took some more salve and gave her other leg the same attention, warming and caressing while Clem closed her eyes in pleasure. 

She opened them again when he stopped to screw the lid back onto the tin. “Might give a girl ideas, if you’re not careful,” she murmured. 

_“God,_ I hope so,” he replied, tossing the tin aside and pressing a kiss to the inside of her knee. 

Clem sat up and took his face in her hands, returning the kiss with one of her own. “Just tell me what you need from me.” 

“I need _you,”_ he said, kissing her chin and neck with every other whispered word, “to _lie back,_ and… yeah, actually, I just need you.” 

“Oh yeah?” She grinned. “You gonna talk the whole time, or are you actually gonna shut-” 

Her ribbing disappeared with a gasp when he caught her earlobe, and she shivered in delight as he whispered through his teeth, “Don’t make me regret this.” 

Clem slipped free of his mouth and pulled back to look at him, lovingly rubbing her thumb against the stubble of his chin. “You’ve… done this before, right?” 

“Heh, yeah,” Beckett reassured her. “Just not with, uh, someone who… well, someone I wanted… _more_ from, you know?” 

“Okay.” Clem kissed him again, long and deep. “Then let’s do this your way.” 

“My way?” 

“Yeah. Take it slow.” 

Slow. Right. Slow was good. From where he was kneeling though, Beckett wasn’t sure where the fuck to start. Clem was a petite little thing when he was standing next to her, but now there was _so much_ of her, perched on the edge of her bed in the candlelight. Her hair was free on her shoulders, aglow from the station lamps peeping through the window behind her, her hazel eyes were flecked with the candlelight from atop her vanity, and as he watched her, she pulled one knee up to her chest and let her slip fall back, revealing a pair of red panties that he was pretty sure had the Nuka-Cherry logo stamped on them. 

Something in Beckett’s mind switched off- or maybe on?- and he was above her before he knew what he was doing, alternating between kissing her fervently and running his hands up and down her body, beneath the flannel shirt and under the slip to the seam of those panties. Clem matched his desperate energy and pushed his tank top up over his head between kisses, giggling as she did. 

“If this is your version of slow, I have no idea what fast would look like,” she joked when he pulled her flannel off, wrestling with where she’d bunched the sleeves up around her elbows. 

Beckett freed her of the shirt and tossed it theatrically to the floor. “What are you talking about? You’ve seen me empty a shotgun before.” 

Clem made a face. “Ten seconds to kill the clip? My condolences to whatever girl you were with when you reached _that_ personal best.” 

“Well, I can’t say I knew what I was doing then,” Beckett admitted, rolling off of her and nudging her to reposition the right way along the bed’s length, “But I know a lot more now about saving your shells for when it counts, and how to reload when your chamber’s empty, and… how far are we gonna carry this metaphor?” 

“Far enough to get to target practice, I hope,” Clem said, laying her head back on the pillows with a grin. 

“Okay, _that…”_ Beckett hiked her slip up around her waist and grabbed the waistband of her underwear, sliding them over her hips and down her legs. “... is enough of _that._ Get a hold of yourself.” 

Clem immediately started giggling, her toes wiggling on the quilt before him. He nudged her knees apart and settled between them, planting kisses along her inner thighs until her laughter began to turn into sighing. When she pulled the hem of her slip higher, sat up and pulled the whole thing over her head, Beckett trailed his kisses upward, caressing the tangle of hair between her legs and pressing at the skin above it with the heel of his hand. He latched onto one of her breasts and ran his tongue around the nipple at a leisurely pace. Clem ground into his hand in response, matching the rhythm with her hips and her fingers on her other breast. She kept trying to buck her pelvis further up, maneuver his hand down toward where he knew she was sensitive, but he wouldn’t budge. He kept up his pace, pressing against her hips and switching from one breast to the other until she was moaning in pleasure and frustration. 

Beckett was already hard from the anticipation he could see he’d built up in her, and he worked his way back down her waist until he was between her legs again and wasn’t lying on top of his own cock. He settled her thighs over each of his shoulders, took a deep breath and parted her entrance with a swipe of his tongue. 

Clem’s heels pressed into the bed on either side of him and one of her hands clutched at his arm. Her whole body shuddered. Beckett smiled and did it again, slower and stronger than before. She was already growing wet from his teasing and he helped it along, tasting and stretching and tracing lazy circles around her clit until she was gasping and arching toward him with every movement he made. 

When he thought she was right on the cusp, Beckett sat up and shucked off his own underwear. He resumed his position on his knees, rubbing the tip of his cock into where his mouth had just been until he felt slick enough to slide into place and _push._

Clem moaned and canted her hips toward him, taking him all in easily. Beckett fell forward over her, caught the line of her jaw in his mouth and let them settle into place for a moment. Her eyes fluttered open and she nestled further back into the pillows. “You okay?” she asked. 

“Yeah.” Beckett grinned. “With you, yeah.” 

He began moving within her, slowly acclimating to the give and take of skin on skin. Clem pulled him down on top of her, worked her fingers into his hair and captured his mouth over and over again, traced every scar on his shoulders and made little noises of longing whenever he pulled back too far. All of this affection was new, and Beckett found it was a bit too much to handle: He had to pause his movement a few times to keep from finishing prematurely. The third time he lay still over her, apologizing, Clem shook her head. “I know it’s been a while for you and I know I’m a bit much for some, by today’s standards,” she said. “But it’s okay, really. It’s kind of cute, to be honest.” 

And of course, he tried to stammer an explanation again, and of course she put a finger over his mouth. “How about this,” she suggested. “You take my spot down here and I’ll take full responsibility for this.” 

She rolled him off of her despite his feeble protests, and even those stopped when she climbed atop him and lowered herself onto his cock. Clem sat up and leaned back slightly, finding her balance while the station lamps lit up her hair again, and she slowly began to rock in place. 

She was barely moving, just rolling her hips, but the feel of her cunt folding around him was enough to make Beckett’s mouth fall open in a moan of his own. She was mesmerizing, the lines of her body smooth in the candlelight, and his hands went to her hips to hold her steady above him. Clem played with her own breasts, ran a hand down her stomach and rubbed her clit while they rocked, biting her lip and keening. When she clenched hard on his cock and cried out, that primal feeling he’d had before erupted again, and he swung her around in one fluid motion to pin her against the bed’s headboard. Her fingers raked his back as he pounded into her, lost all control as she called his name and pulled him closer. It was all he could do to slip out before the rush came, and he groaned as what he’d been holding back spilled out onto her legs and bedding. She held him against her as his breath slowed, one hand limply tangled in his hair. 

“I, um… I think I might’ve ruined your pillows,” he said sheepishly when he was spent. 

“Fuck the pillows,” she replied weakly. “Whatever that was at the end, I’d like to see more of, someday.” 

* * *

Clem took her clothes and disappeared downstairs while Beckett cleaned up her room, stripping the bed sheets and pillowcases and sponging the stickiness off of the headboard with a bucket from the brewing station sink. He had it looking relatively put-together in no time, and he fixed his hair in her mirror before pulling his clothes back on and wandering down to see what she was up to. 

He found her in the bathtub she’d stolen from the Whitespring’s storage, soaking in warm water and breathing in the rising steam. Beckett sat down on the mat next to the tub and put his arm on the edge of it. “Was it-” 

“Yeah.” Clem smiled. 

“So do you want to-” 

She nodded enthusiastically. “God, yeah.” 

He couldn’t help but laugh. “You have no idea what I was going to ask.” 

Clem held up a finger. “‘Was it good?’ Yes,” she said, before popping another finger up. “‘Do I want to keep doing this?’ Hell yes. Maybe I’m selfish, but I’d like to be there when you overcome your hang-ups.” 

“Yeah, well, I think that’s… something we can work on,” Beckett said, looking away and blushing. 

“Hey.” Clem caught his face in her wet hand and turned it back toward her. “Like I said: You’re worth a wait.”


	5. Penelope

Penelope Hornwright knew when she wasn’t wanted. 

Foundation’s residents had looked at her with sideways glances from day one, which she was more than used to at that point. Though she wasn’t the only ghoul in the settlement, she was one of only a handful, and certainly the only one that Paige sought advice from. While Penny wouldn’t have called herself leadership by any means, she did find satisfaction in being looked to for her pre-war expertise. It was at least a nice change from being asked whether she knew how to handle anything besides her 10mm handgun. 

And then Maggie Williams came to town, and the sideways glances started to get a little dour. It was just Penny’s luck that the new woman looking for a roof over her head was a victim of one of Daniel Hornwright’s clean-up projects, and her daddy one of the unfortunate souls buried twice by Hornwright Industrial: Once by the supervisor who collapsed the Monongah mine entrance, and once by the company’s ruthless cover-up of the whole thing. 

Maggie wasn’t one to keep her well-earned disdain to herself, and Penny started encountering hushed conversations that would abruptly stop as soon as she drew near. “I’ve been keeping an eye on her,” she overheard Maggie say to Ward one night on the fringes of the usual hullabaloo of musical instruments. “Shame about her face... I guess the Hornwrights’ ugliness is finally showin’ up on the outside.” 

Penny kept her head high like her mother had taught her, but also followed her father’s advice of practicality and informed Paige that she was planning to make an extended run into Watoga to look for salvageable bots. Paige agreed without any more fuss than his usual grave expression and clap on the shoulder, but Jen was irate when Penny approached her about caring for Tutti Frutti. 

“How is that fair?” the young woman protested when Penny handed over the ginger cat. “After everything you’ve done for us, you get shunted to the side?  _ Tiān ā, _ we can’t just keep blaming people today for what their parents did yesterday.” 

“I’m not getting ‘shunted to the side,’ I’m going scavenging for more Sunny bots,” Penny corrected her. “If I’m lucky, something that doesn’t connect to their little hivemind circuit. And father wasn’t in charge of Hornwright operations in 2076, I was.” 

Jen clearly didn’t know what that meant, exactly, and her complaints did not lessen in frequency or fervor while her scientific mentor packed. Even as the elevator of Founder’s Hall creaked slowly upward, Penny could hear her muttered Mandarin floating up the shaft below. Curse words, no doubt. 

Penny took the main road out of Foundation in the early morning sunlight, squinting when she turned back to look at the town’s proud walls. The settlement was a pretty sight, bathed in the brightness of a new day. “We shall be as a city upon a hill,” she said to herself, gripping the straps of her backpack firmly. It was an old quote, one she’d heard her father work into speeches about everything from the dedication of new mining sites to the introduction of his beloved Ballot Measure 6. “The eyes of all people are upon us.” 

With her farewells complete, Penny turned and set her sights on the road ahead. She followed the cracked Highway 101 southwest until it curved firmly south, where she parted ways with it and continued due west into the foothills. While she still gave any known raider territory a wide berth, Penny felt more confident now in straying beyond the relative safety of the crumbled Appalachian roads. When she’d first returned to the area, the mysterious shifting soil that had accompanied the Motherlode and pursued her to the Hornwright Estate had kept her from wandering, but now the earth was still and Penny found herself missing the robotic drill’s presence. 

She’d made a few more excursions out to the estate since taking up residence at Foundation, but now there was nothing left up in that Mega Mansion except for scattered papers on the floor, father’s old Stingray Deluxe hanging from the ceiling and a sweeping view of the remains of Bramwell and its neighboring towns, which the settlers so charmingly called “the Ash Heap.” Penny cast more than a few fond looks toward the towers on the horizon as she left the mountains, picking her way down the rocks until she arrived at the bustling, western end of the Big Bend Tunnel. 

It had grown exponentially in size and population since the last time she had traveled with the Blue Ridge Caravan Company, and Penny congratulated Eugenie on the progress. “Glad you’re under some scrap metal and timber now, instead of those flimsy tents you used to have,” she remarked as she counted out caps to buy passage with the next brahmin train. 

The ghoul merchant laughed. “Me too, but we’re lucky the tents even survived, with the number of Blood Eagles we were up against those first few runs. And I reckon you’d rather a tent full of holes than your chest, darlin’.” 

“Oh, absolutely.” Penny straightened her glasses and peered up at the walkways criss-crossing the tunnel’s entrance. A man was walking the length of one, and as his arm fell to his side, she spotted the Pip-Boy on his wrist. 

Eugenie followed her gaze. “Oh yeah, more than a few of those vault dwellers lent a helpin’ hand. They need work and we need people, so it weren’t too much of a stretch for Vinny to make a deal. You run into any yourself?” 

“One or two,” Penny admitted. “They’re a mixed bag, from what I could tell.” 

“Well yeah, we all are,” Eugenie said with a chuckle. “Got a few that come back and forth with Kieran and Libby and I, on occasion. None this time, but there was one last week who nailed a few of those raider bastards to the wall when they tried to pick my pocket. Damn fine sight.” 

“I’m sure.” Penny turned back to inquire further, but they were interrupted by the ringing of the caravan assembly bell. As the sun reached its peak, the brahmin, the guards and the last of the Hornwright mining dynasty made their way single-file into the cool dark of the Big Bend Tunnel. 

Despite Eugenie’s best efforts, the tunnel dampened any idle conversation. Every little sound echoed on the concrete walls, and even the smallest drip of water was amplified to absurdity in the void stretching ahead. Some of the darkness had been beaten back by mismatched work lights along the walls, but every now and then there was a long stretch where they had burnt out or there simply wasn’t enough intact wall to run wiring along, and Penny would hold her breath as they passed through. Kieran Kennedy was leading again, and he maintained the grim silence as the group moved along the boarded-over train tracks. 

Penny’s mind wandered and grew ghosts as she stared ahead into the tunnel. She hadn’t come this way when she and her family had fled Appalachia. She wondered if Bryce would’ve tried to make the best of it if he’d walked this tunnel with her, told her the story of John Henry and his hammer carving a path through the mountain. She wondered if she would’ve teased him about it, about the Excavator power armor and trying to make a myth into a reality. 

Some of that brevity had survived the bombs, but it only peeked out now when she worked on the Sunny bots with Jen or when Derrick brought her his latest attempt at a casserole. She’d spent so much time alone since the vault door had closed on her family that she’d grown desperate for any hint of acceptance, even going so far as to put herself in danger and join groups she couldn’t show her true face to. She’d told herself it was for survival’s sake, for the benefit of others and not just herself, but it was really just the connection she missed. Being loved, adored, relied upon, seen as someone with value beyond the ordinary. Seen the way she had been when the professors used to call on her at Vault-Tec University, when she entered a party on the arm of some West Virginian socialite, when the cameras of the press flashed while she spoke to a crowd at Hornwright Industrial’s latest unveiling. Seen the way she had been when Bryce looked at her, when her daughter looked at her. The way she used to wish her father would look at her. 

Penny sighed and shook her head. Those days were gone, replaced by a handy capability with ugly side effects and an endless string of uncertain encounters. Foundation may have been a taste of what she’d had, but Maggie Williams was a reminder of what was always going to come. 

“Alright there, Pen?” Eugenie asked in a raspy whisper. 

“Fine, just fine,” she answered. 

Perhaps Eugenie was a bit more perceptive than Penny had guessed, and she caught the merchant watching her the few times she turned her head to look at the caravan train following behind. When they finally emerged at the eastern end of the tunnel beneath a rosy sunset over the mountains, Eugenie led her brahmin away from the crowd in an uncharacteristic bid for breathing room. 

“You know, my invitation to our little compound in the hills stands,” Eugenie said when she took Penny’s pack down from the brahmin and handed it to her. “Folk like us oughtta stick together. Nothin’ on the Foundation settlers, just my two caps.” 

“Two caps.” Penny mustered a smirk. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you weren’t born before the war, Eugenie.” 

Eugenie winked. “And what makes you think I was? Not all of us were, blondie.” 

“I merely have my suspicions.” Penny settled the backpack on her shoulders and smoothed some hair behind her ears. “Thanks for the escort. If everything goes well, I’ll be back through within the week.” 

* * *

The sun was fully behind the mountains by the time Penny made her way down to the cranberry bogs. The skyscrapers of Appalachia’s prized metropolis stood tall in the dying light, and she paused for a moment to appreciate the handsome ruin. Watoga was still impressive, even from a distance, and Penny couldn’t help but recall the flashy ad campaigns that Atomic Mining Services had run praising their crown jewel: “The CITY of the FUTURE!” 

The city of the future itself was now a death trap for unsuspecting visitors, human, mutant or otherwise. Something had gone very, very wrong with the municipal bots, even before the bombs fell; Penny remembered scattered news bulletins of evacuation and chaos the day before the war took over every airwave that remained functional. The result was that all of the resources Watoga could have offered survivors were largely intact, closely guarded by an army of hostile municipal drones surrounded by swampy flatlands over which scorchbeasts occasionally flapped. Scavengers still tried their hand at plundering the city’s treasures, especially now that the plague had a vaccine, but those who actually came back reported only mixed to meager success. They all agreed, however, that the best way to take a crack at it was to go in with minimal manpower. Even Paige had limited supply runs into the city to include three people at most, after previous missions ended in disaster. 

“Alone is about as minimal as it gets,” Penny said to herself, before continuing down the railroad tracks. Jen had told her a long time ago that while the rest of the city’s bots were hostile, the train station ticket vendor on the southern side of the city was not, and previous scavenging groups had used the station as a relatively safe base. With night falling, Penny hoped to lock herself inside its bathroom and get some uninterrupted sleep. 

Those hopes were dashed when the station was just coming into view. An evening breeze had sprung up as Penny approached the city, blowing through the abandoned high rises and into the grass of the bog. It carried with it the unmistakable growl of a charging laser, and Penny dove into the ditch just as the assaultron’s red beam struck the tracks where she had been walking. 

The ditch led two ways- a meandering path north or straight east. Penny picked north, knowing she would never be able to outrun the infernal machine or its fiery gaze in a straight shot, and her boots splashed in the muck at the bottom of the ravine as she wove between the banks of sod. The ditch curved around Watoga Estates on the southwestern side of the city, and fear gripped Penny’s heart when metal footsteps began to echo somewhere behind her, on the right side of the dirt bank. 

Penny abandoned the ravine when she reached the cover of a monorail pylon, and she vaulted over a viewing embankment and made a dash for the nearby buildings. The laser followed her, searing into the concrete behind her heels. The footsteps recommenced, and a few bot construction pods near the entrances of the city’s transit hub began to hum and whir, ready to release their contents into the pursuit. It was all Penny could do to scramble behind a rusting bus and pull out her gun, certain she wasn’t going to survive the encounter. 

Just as the assaultron’s steps reached the other side of the bus, the sound of metal striking metal filled the street. Someone was firing shots at the bot, with something a lot bigger than a pistol. Penny crouched down and pressed herself into the side of the bus, listening as hard as she could. Scraping. Uncertain movement from somewhere by the transit hub. The laser charge beginning and then fizzling in a burst of light that threw shadows against nearby buildings. The various bot pods Penny had passed on the way in began to open and spill out protectrons, each of them sounding an alarm:  _ “Attention. This is now a combat zone. You may suffer harm up to and including death if you remain in the area. This notice required by law.”  _

“Stand down!” 

The protectrons did not appear to be listening to her savior, and went on clanking toward Penny’s bus. Another laser, much less intimidating but no less dangerous, fizzed against the vehicle’s front bumper.  _ “Intruder. Alert.” _

“Oh, for- stand down, by order of the mayor!” 

Miraculously, the sound of the bots’ movement stopped.  _ “Madame mayor. Protect AND serve.”  _

A blonde woman holding a railway rifle at the ready appeared around the other side of the bus. “You okay?” she asked, approaching Penny cautiously. 

Penny didn’t answer right away. She took a few deep breaths and gathered her wits before looking up into a face she recognized.  _ Savoy. _ What the hell was she doing here? Penny stared, while the Voice of Watoga came over the loudspeakers in the background.  _ “Watoga EMS is currently experiencing longer than expected wait times. We thank you for your patience!”  _

Hesitantly, Penny accepted the vault dweller’s extended hand and climbed to her feet. She dusted herself off and straightened her glasses while Savoy reloaded the railway rifle and strapped it onto her back. 

“How did you get administrative privileges around here?” Penny asked when she was sure everything was still in one piece. “Did those bots call you ‘madame mayor?’ What fancy workaround did you find?” 

Savoy shrugged. “It’s a… it’s a long story. I know someone who knows someone. Took a while, a lot of bullets, but there’s a handful of us now who are recognized by the local hardware.” 

“Ah.” Penny clutched her backpack straps close to her chest protectively. Savoy looked to the side, hand scratching the back of her neck, and the two women stood awkwardly in the street while the protectrons clanked noisily away. Penny hadn’t seen the vault dweller since they had broken into Vault 79 and lost the Motherlode, since she had taken her leave of Savoy and the heist party and headed home once the vault’s walls were breached. She’d seen Paige’s disappointment firsthand after that, when Foundation received only half of the riches it had expected. Since then, she’d made a point of hiding inside Founder’s Hall whenever she spotted Savoy’s golden head in the marketplace, leading a brahmin laden with spirits and avoiding eye contact with most everyone. 

Truthfully, Penny hadn’t resented Savoy as much as the other residents had once Ward broke the truth of the matter to the entire settlement. Gold was something to be valued, sure, but not the same way it once had been. Currency was still somewhat fluid in this new world. While bottle caps seemed to be on the up-and-up just about everywhere, there were more than a few remnants of the United States out there still using American bills, or pivoting to systems of barter. She’d even run across pockets of civilization that were using their own invented legal tender: Mussel shells, clothing buttons, and once, even teeth. No, Penny avoided the vault dweller because whenever the residents of Foundation caught sight of her descending in the Founder’s Hall elevator as Savoy unpacked her wares, they nodded their approval, and approval was everything to a woman in her situation. 

“Maram!” Savoy shouted suddenly, looking toward the transit hub. “Shooting’s over! Got a casualty for you to adopt!” 

Another woman’s voice called out in response. “Oh no! Not one of the cutie pies! Who is it this time?” 

“Assaultron!” 

To Penny’s bewilderment, this statement elicited an audible groan. “Not one of  _ those. _ Once you get lower than their heads, they’re no fun to work with.” 

“Take it or leave it!” Savoy turned back to Penny. “Sorry about that. Come on, you two should meet.” 

Penny followed Savoy out from behind the bus cautiously, to where a woman was waiting over the assaultron’s limp body. She looked like she was about the same age as the Hornwright heir, though she looked like she’d fared considerably better in the years following the Great War. 

“Maram Ayari, meet…” Savoy trailed off and gestured, clearly unsure how to introduce the woman she’d just rescued. 

“Penny.” Penny put a hand out, but Maram recoiled from it and knelt down to begin gathering up assaultron pieces. She pried railway spikes out of its torso and head as she did, muttering in disgust. “Honestly, what were you thinking? She could’ve really been hurt. Gonna need to replace all of the upper joint sockets, not to mention her optics core and fusion chambers…” 

“Are you… another vault dweller?” Penny asked, still unable to believe that this person was showing more compassion for the bot than for the innocent woman it had attacked. 

“Heh,  _ that’s _ not important,” Maram replied, tossing another spike aside. “So, Savoy, are you going to take her to see Maya right now, or do we need to program an escort?” 

“Maya can wait until the morning,” Savoy answered, looking up at the dim street lights. “I’ll hole up in the estates with her until then. Unless you have a better idea, doctor?” 

“No,” Penny said, relieved. A night with the vault dweller was better than a night alone in a train station. 

“Thanks, Maram,” Savoy said, picking up the discarded railway spikes and directing Penny toward the nearest apartment building. 

“Don’t mention it,” the bot enthusiast called after them flatly. “Really.” 

* * *

Savoy led the way up the high rise’s stairs to the fourth floor, through a hallway full of closed doors to a set of rooms that smelled a little less of death than the rest of the building. When Penny stepped into the apartment’s living room and took in the smashed windows and the stars beyond, she sighed and laid her backpack on the unsteady coffee table. 

“Are we safe here?” she asked, taking a seat on the floor with her back against the remnants of a sofa. 

“We should be,” Savoy answered. She strode to the window and looked down at a pair of Mister Handys patrolling the street below. “I’m guessing that assaultron chased you into the city limits? Jen and her crew know better than to walk in on the main roads.” 

“Correct.” Penny set her gun on the table next to the backpack. “This was not how I expected the evening to go.” 

Savoy laughed. “Me either. Not that I don’t appreciate the surprise.” She sank into a vinyl lounge chair, the only piece of furniture untouched by the open windows’ wrath other than a light sun bleaching. “What brings you into Watoga? Supplies run?” 

Penny nodded. “Looking for bots, and a little bit of peace and quiet.” 

Savoy nodded in turn. “You came to the right place. That is, if you have administrative privileges around here. Like I told Maram, we can tackle that tomorrow.” 

She pulled her black hat down over her eyes, but Penny pressed her for details. “Is that what you need this… Maya for?” 

“Yeah.” Savoy lifted the hat’s brim again. “The town’s Mayoral Artificial Intelligence Assistant. MAIA for short.” 

Penny’s face lit up in recognition. “Of course. I remember hearing something about this place having an automated executive branch. It’s been so long, I completely forgot.” 

“Oh, that’s right.” Savoy pushed her hat back up completely. “You’re pre-war. Have you been here before? What was it like?” 

“Ah.” If Penny had still had intact cheeks, she might have blushed at the inquiry. “It’s been ages since I lived here. I couldn’t do it justice, even if we weren’t in the middle of an apocalypse.” 

That only seemed to pique Savoy’s interest. “You  _ lived _ here?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Where? Why?” 

Penny laughed and pointed out the window. “Across the street. There, on the top floor. Father paid to rent me the penthouse for my internship at Atomic Mining Services, in the summer of 2069.” 

Savoy pulled her railway rifle around and began disassembling and cleaning it, perhaps in an attempt to make her guest feel comfortable. She gestured that Penny should continue, so she did. “This place was ablaze with activity in 2069,” she explained to the vault dweller. “At least among the elite, it acquired a reputation for having all the prestige of Charleston and all the wealth of Bramwell, but none of the riffraff.” 

“Riffraff,” Savoy commented with a smirk, not looking up from her gun. “That’s what you called those who couldn’t afford to live here?” 

“Atomic Mining Services built this city from the ground up,” Penny retorted. “This place was a garden for the innovatives and businesses of the Eastern Commonwealth. You’re a child of a vault, you can’t imagine the great minds that convened here to dream up the technology that built the strength of this country, what they needed to make everything work.” 

“I wasn’t born in the vault,” Savoy muttered. 

Penny ignored her. “I came here to work with AMS’s automation department in between years at Vault-Tec University. It was a revelation after working in our own operations department the summer before, and it gave me the freedom I craved to experiment, the ability to stop playing it safe to protect the company’s bottom line. Each day was a new adventure, walking to a job I loved and coming home after dark without a care in the world beyond my next project. The civil works bots handled every mundane task with only minor hiccups, leaving me and the rest of the residents free to fill our time with hobbies, entrepreneurial pursuits and lavish celebrations over the silliest things.” 

Her face fell a little at the memory. “Like the gala that AMS threw when I completed the summer internship. A blatant, sycophantic display to earn father’s approval.” 

Savoy paused the work on her rifle and raised her eyes again. She didn’t say anything though, and Penny found herself filling the space between them with words she wasn’t aware she still had. “I just… smiled. Through all the speeches that were supposed to be praising me, but inevitably twisted around into open admiration of my dear old dad. Every single one of them, the ones I’d listened to and learned from, the ones I’d developed techniques and filed patents with, the ones I used to sit next to at lunchtime. I stood there and accepted it, the schmoozing, everything.  _ Graciously. _ And father did, too. He didn’t say one word, even though I’d been the one to set up the business agreements between AMS and Hornwright Industrial, not him. Everyone there was more eager to bend Daniel Hornwright’s ear and compliment him on his latest acquisitions than they were to spare me so much as a thank-you.” 

Penny fell silent, and Savoy let out a nervous chuckle. “Wow. Been holding onto that for a while? All through the nuclear war and everything?” 

“Not exactly.” Penny smiled, aware of her own ridiculousness. “I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore. Who I share that story with, I mean. Everyone who might remember it is either dead or… long gone.” 

Savoy cocked her head to the side. “Keep going, then.” 

Penny took a deep breath. “Well, the rest of it is a little less depressing. I was freshly legal that summer, and it was a party, after all. The protectrons- the ones painted like they’re wearing suits and ties- were brand new, and they were serving glasses of champagne for guests. I had more than a few, and by the time mother noticed my indiscretion, I was already ditzy and laughing much louder than a lady of my standing was allowed to.” 

“Now you’re talking.” Savoy reached into her own pack on the floor and tossed Penny a flask. “You can recreate the moment, if you’d like.” 

“Thanks.” Penny unscrewed the flask’s top and sniffed the contents experimentally. If she’d still had a nose, she guessed the inside of it would be burning. She took a drink anyway and wiped her mouth. “Mother snatched up a tray of parmesan panna cotta from the nearest protectron and forced them on me in the corner. Told me to ‘compose myself.’ I got a little mouthy, or as mouthy as I could through bites of cheese. ‘Why?’ I asked, ‘So I don’t embarrass the great Hornwright patriarch? I couldn’t ruin father’s reputation if I tried.’” 

She pointed the flask at Savoy. “She took my shoulders in her hands, looked me in the eye and said, ‘So you don’t embarrass my daughter, the pride of Appalachia, the best of us.’” 

Savoy laughed openly at this, and Penny couldn’t help joining in. “Maybe it’s better that mother died before the world ended, before ‘the pride of Appalachia’ was reduced to sneaking into the city of the future and reprogramming its bots,” she admitted. 

“So when I said, ‘what was it like,’ I was looking for a description of the city, not recollections of your fat cat family,” Savoy said, grinning. 

Penny drank from the flask again and waved a hand around. “Honestly, the only things missing from it right now are the people, the working vehicles and a few coats of paint. Fewer scorchbeasts, too.” 

“More gold?” 

Penny made a face. “Gold never factored heavily into our lives, beyond the shop window of a jeweler’s. Bots were the gold then, and they still are today.” 

“Hmm.” Savoy slapped the last missing piece of her rifle into place and examined it. “Your mom sounds like an encouraging woman, at least.” 

“When encouraging me wasn’t getting in the way of what father expected of us, sure.” Penny rolled her eyes. “Why, what was your mother like?” 

Savoy opened her mouth and closed it like a fish, eyes searching for something that she probably wasn’t going to find on the abandoned apartment’s floor. “My mother… is a bit of a mystery. Even to me.” 

“Did she… pass away before you had the chance to get to know her?” 

“No.” Savoy frowned. “I know pretty well who she is. I just didn’t learn it from her. And as far as I know, she’s alive. She was always great at putting distance between us, even during the years in the vault. Once the door opened, she got even better at it.” 

“I… see,” Penny said, even though she very much did not. “Where is she now?” 

In answer, Savoy pulled a photograph from inside her pack and handed it over. It was a tall suspension bridge clogged with cars, with a broken, burning city in the background. A green sign hung between the two suspension towers nearest the camera, an official Pittsburgh marker that had been defaced to read  _ Welcome to the Pitt.  _

“Good gracious me,” Penny said, searching the frame with concern. “Your mother’s a brave woman. She sent you this?” 

Savoy nodded. “They make their way to me, through caravans and friends. When she heard Foundation’s story, she couldn’t resist running off with her ProSnap Deluxe to document what they ran away from. She used to be quite the wartime photographer, they say.” 

“A photojournalist,” Penny murmured, handing the picture back along with the flask. “It’s effective imagery, I’ll admit, but I’m not familiar with anyone named Savoy. What was her maiden name? Perhaps I knew her work.” 

Savoy pressed her lips together before answering. “Carter. Kennedy Carter.” 

“Kennedy Carter.” Penny’s mouth curled into a wide smile. “Of course. Everyone saw her series from the Anchorage front lines, and the shots of the riots in Toronto. I’m surprised your mother didn’t insist on Vault 76 keeping its door open so she could dash out to photograph Appalachia’s strife after the bombs fell.” 

“She probably tried.” Savoy smirked. “But you would have been more likely to deal with her sister at the  _ Charleston Herald.” _

Penny’s eyes widened. “Quinn Carter, the reporter? The secessionist sympathizer? I might have guessed they were related, and you for that matter. You all share the same, rabid pursuit of your goals. All due respect, of course.” 

Savoy raised her eyebrows. “What, not planning to tear me down like Ward tried to? Spread that tidbit about my bloodline around, and it might do the trick. Grudges live long lives in Appalachia.” 

“Don’t I know it.” Penny sighed. “No, I don’t intend to further destabilize your shaky image. Stones, glass houses and all that.” 

“Right. The ruthless mining tycoon and the woman who ruined Foundation’s chances for the future. We’re a pair.” 

Penny snorted. “Hardly. You still delivered us more gold than what we originally had. If you’d wanted to ruin our chances completely, you should’ve broken into the vault with the ladies and gentlemen of the Crater and not given us a second glance.” 

“Mmm, well, tell that to your fellow settlers,” Savoy replied, stowing the picture away again and taking her own swig from the flask. “You won’t, though.” 

“No,” Penny admitted. “I won’t.” 

Silence fell over them again, until Savoy had taken another drink and smacked her lips with relish. “You were a unit, then? You, the rest of the Hornwrights? Closed ranks and kept your mouths shut to protect the company?” 

“Oh, of course,” Penny replied wryly. “Father used to say that any family worth its salt would die long before their name did, and he was willing to do just about anything to ensure that Appalachia wouldn’t forget our name for centuries. That kind of philosophy does not tend to win you friends. Mother and I were on board, though, and given a little time, I’m sure my little brother Liam would have straightened out eventually, or at least faded into the background enough to avoid doing lasting damage. We all had our little rebellions like him, but at the end of the day, it was us against the rest of the world.” 

“Little rebellions?” 

“Oh yes. Mother had that disastrous foray into astrology, father would disappear for days at a time to pursue some legendary fish in the Monongahela, Liam neglected his studies and had a fondness for grass…” 

“Grass?” 

“Right.” Penny screwed her face up, remembering the foul odor that used to cling to her brother’s Morgantown apartment. “Marijuana. Pre-war chem, similar to… well, I’m not quite sure what to compare it to. Perhaps Day Tripper?” 

“Hm.” Savoy looked thoughtful. “Did your little rebellions go beyond getting drunk at parties, or were you always the golden child?” 

Penny smiled. “Outwardly, I was the golden child, save a social blunder here or there. But I held onto my rebellion for my entire life. His name was Bryce Garrahan.” 

Savoy raised her eyebrows and smiled too. “A man. A  _ Garrahan _ man. What would your father have said?” 

Penny’s face fell. “I wouldn’t know.” 

Savoy sobered immediately. “I’m sorry.” 

“No, no, it’s ancient history.” Penny swallowed the lump in her throat, then washed it down with some more of Savoy’s liquor. “Father knew Bryce well enough, and the bombs likely would’ve opened his eyes to the importance of things like what we had. But the Motherlode project… changed him. By the time we were free to tell him about our relationship, he had already retreated too far inside his own mind to realize what we were saying, or care. He spent the rest of his years after the war in a catatonic state while his legacy fell around him. Tragic, really.” 

“Mmm.” Savoy leaned back in her chair and put her feet up on the coffee table. “So you were all holed up in that bunker beneath your mansion together, then? Until you struck out to leave Appalachia?” 

“More or less.” Penny bobbed her head. “The day it all happened, I had the staff in Charleston retrieve father from his office and drive him home. Liam took his time with his newfound freedom, but eventually Morgantown became too dangerous and he made his way home as well. Bryce and his family had their own bunker, and we kept in touch via the terminal mail system and waited for things above to blow over. Our estates’ security systems kept any would-be looters out, and we only emerged for necessities. Of course, nothing blew over. When we had to bury father, I hadn’t seen the sky for almost two years.” 

She took a deep breath. “Eventually, our supplies began to run out. Liam and I started to take turns going aboveground to scavenge. Bryce and his family members joined us, but after a while there was nothing to be found nearby. After Bryce’s mother died, his brother Bill left, then his cousin and his other brother. Liam disappeared on a run into Lewisburg, and when it was down to just Bryce and I, we decided it was time to move on from Bramwell if we wanted to survive.” 

“And you did.” 

“And we did.” Penny bowed her head. “He gave me his mother’s ring, and we wandered off together into the beginnings of a nuclear winter.” 

She pulled the ring on the chain from beneath her coat and handed it over to Savoy. The vault dweller held it up, examining the teardrop-shaped diamonds set in the silver band. “It’s beautiful.” 

Penny smirked. “If you want an impressive engagement ring to hand down to your kids, marry a jeweler. But enough about me. Don’t you have some dreamboat parked in your marina at the moment? Or was Jen pulling my leg?” 

Savoy handed the ring back. “I do, but that’s none of your business or Jen’s.” 

“Well, people talk.” Penny hung the chain around her neck again and tucked the ring away. “Especially when it’s you and a man who cuts a handsome figure under a pair of shades. You and your nuke-launching kin are the closest things we have to celebrities, nowadays.” 

Savoy rolled her eyes. “And yet, none of them have nearly as much trouble as I do walking into Foundation’s market to sell our goods.” 

“None of them got on Foundation’s bad side quite like you did.” 

“Touché.” Savoy set her gun down on the coffee table. “Do you miss it?” 

“Do I miss what?” 

“Being the center of attention.” 

Penny stiffened, but Savoy kept going, perhaps aware that she was cutting to her guest’s core. “Reading about yourself in the papers. Having dinner with the governor. Assistants following in your wake every day.” 

Penny’s heart was rising in her throat. “I… suppose I do.” 

“You’d be crazy not to.” Savoy’s voice was lower now, huskier. “Getting dolled up for drinks at charity balls. Borrowing daddy’s Corvega to make a splashy entrance. Watching Appalachia’s most eligible bachelors watch you from across the room.” 

The vault dweller put one foot back down on the floor and leaned forward in her chair, cocking her head to the side. “Maybe some of the bachelorettes, too?” 

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Savoy.” 

“Come on.” Savoy put her other foot down and scooted to the edge of her seat. She took her hat off and let her golden hair fall free around her shoulders in the starlight. She didn’t look real. “It has to have been a while, since you last lost yourself in that feeling. Since you had the chance, maybe.” 

Penny looked up at her, wreathed in the light of a Watoga evening, and she couldn’t deny that part of her ached for what the vault dweller was clearly offering. She’d never been with a woman, but what did that matter when the world was over? Who else was shedding their inhibitions over a ghoul past her prime, weighed down with the loss of an entire empire? 

Instinct, though, led her fingers to the chain around her neck, and she knew that fantasy couldn’t be. “Thank you,” she murmured, “But I’ll find that feeling again some other way.” 

Savoy saw where her hand was clenched, and she withdrew. “My mistake. I’m sorry.” 

There was silence between them then, much longer than any of the ones before. Penny broke it first, after she had gathered her thoughts. “This man you’re with. Does he give you everything you’re looking for?” 

“He does,” Savoy replied hesitantly. “At least, I think he does. He and I… between the two of us, we don’t have much experience, I guess you could say. And I’m… different. Quick to initiate something, but slow to build it.” 

“And this world affords little in the way of stability to build experience upon. I understand.” Penny sighed. “Even harder to do if you didn’t have great examples to go on.” 

Savoy looked away. “Yeah. Sure.” 

Penny realized too late that she had unintentionally insulted Savoy's absentee mother. Truthfully, she'd been thinking of her own daughter, growing up in a vault without a mother of her own. The damage was already done, though, and she was more than ready to drop the conversation for the night, but eventually the other woman looked up again with a cryptic comment. “You’ve been lucky so far, Penelope Hornwright. I hope that luck holds out. We’ll need it, if I’m not mistaken.” 

Penny narrowed her eyes. “Why?” 

Savoy waved her off. “That’s a problem for tomorrow. We should rest.” 

“Fine.” Penny settled in against the sofa and clasped her hands over her stomach. “I’ll take the first watch. Get some sleep.” 

* * *

Savoy made good on her promise to get Penny registered in MAIA’s system the next morning, and she made her goodbyes outside Maram’s workshop inside the transit hub. The robot enthusiast muttered to herself in the background throughout their final conversation, but Savoy assured Penny that if it was bots she was looking for, Maram was the person to go to. 

“She’s a little odd, but she knows them upside down and inside out,” the vault dweller said as she shouldered her pack. “I’ve got to get home as soon as possible, or I’d stay to keep you company.” 

She turned to go, but Penny called out to her before she got more than a few steps. “Why are you in Watoga, anyway? I forgot to ask, last night.” 

Savoy switched on her Pip-Boy’s radio and fiddled with the tuning dial until a woman’s voice came over the speakers, slightly layered with static.  _ “-to be delivered to the ATLAS observatory in anticipation of our arrival,” _ she was saying.  _ “Your cooperation guarantees our ability to secure a better future for Appalachia. Be part of that future, help us. This has been Paladin Rahmani, First Expeditionary Force. The Brotherhood is returning, see you soon. Message repeats.”  _

Savoy turned the volume down while the message looped. “I’ve got a little bit more range than you and the Foundation folks do. You and Jen have probably got mostly static right now, but by the time you get home, this should be coming through loud and clear. Crater’s already heard it, and so has most of my vault. The Brotherhood’s on its way. I came down here to follow up on a lead about their intentions.” 

A shiver ran down Penny’s spine. “Did you find out?” 

“Didn’t get a good answer,” Savoy replied darkly. “But they’re moving in up the hill from me, and I damn well aim to figure out why.” 

She took a deep breath and turned back to the road, but once again Penny stopped her. "Wait." 

Savoy turned back, annoyed, and Penny wrapped her in a hug before she could protest. She was stiff at first, unsure, but as Penny held on she relaxed inch by inch into the embrace. When they pulled apart again, Penny pecked her on the cheek and smiled. 

"Take care of yourself, dear," she said quietly. 

The vault dweller smiled through tired eyes. "Likewise, Ms. Hornwright." 


End file.
